The Ukrainian crisis and the lessons of the Russian invasion of Georgia

Condoleezza Rice (file photo) The Ukrainian crisis and the lessons of the Russian invasion of Georgia

Tbilisi experts believe that the United States then did everything possible

Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States did its best in 2008 to prevent Russia from invading Georgia and that subsequent attempts by Washington to impose sanctions on Russia did not had not been supported by the EU. However, the few sanctions that applied, according to Rice, were reduced to nothing a few years later, after the “reset” of relations with Moscow announced by President Barack Obama. Condoleezza Rice made this comment in connection with accusations by some US analysts that Russia’s current actions against Ukraine are caused by the fact that at some point the United States failed to follow up on the invasion of Russian troops in Georgia by the United States.

Condoleezza Rice in an interview with CNN recalled that the United States had warned Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that Russia would organize provocations, and that it was particularly important not to succumb to them. When the war started, the United States allocated a billion dollars to support Georgia and took measures to strengthen the country’s combat capacity, returned a contingent of Georgian troops from Iraq and conducted naval exercises in the Black Sea region to demonstrate American support for Georgia. Rice said that after invading the country, Russian troops were also going to take Tbilisi.

Former head of foreign policy in the George W. Bush administration. once again remembered the episode described in her memoirs about the demands of Russia, presented to her by the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sergey Lavrov. In particular, the fact that one of the demands of the Russian Federation involved the removal of Saakashvili from the presidency and, as Rice says, Lavrov asked her not to make it public, however, she refused.

“I told him, Sergey, the Russian Foreign Minister and the US Secretary of State cannot discuss the issue of impeachment of a democratically elected government. And I intend to tell everyone that this is one of your requirements. That’s exactly what I did. After that, Lavrov’s attitude towards me was not the same… I think we did everything we could do,” Condoleezza Rice said.

Retro-analysis

Political scientist David Darchiashvili of Georgia’s Ilya University believes it’s easy to talk about miscalculations and mistakes in hindsight, although in 2008 almost every Western country perceived the invasion of Georgia by Russia “not as an attempt by Moscow to change the security architecture of Europe, but rather as a specific and more or less local act of aggression.

“Putin talks about his plans since the recognition of Kosovo, but post-Soviet inertia prevailed in the West, as they preferred not to see Russia as an enemy and tried to find common ground with Moscow. Today today this can be called a miscalculation and an inadequate risk assessment, although at the time it was apparently not easy to realize the full extent of Putin’s intentions, obviously one had to have more facts to be sure. It happened in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea,” the expert believes.

At the same time, Darchiashvili says that when the war in Georgia entered an open and burning phase, it was thanks to American aid that the statehood of the country was preserved. In particular, he recalled that Russian troops began to withdraw after President George W. Bush’s speech, when he announced the start of a humanitarian operation to assist Georgia and American warships entered in Georgian ports, and that American planes have started landing at airports.

“I think the position and the help of the United States were the decisive factors that stopped Russia in 2008,” Darchiashvili said.

Lack of unity

Political scientist Niko Toidze notes that even today, after Russia invaded Georgia, annexed Crimea and destabilized eastern Ukraine for years, the West has failed to show resilience. unity in drafting sanctions against Russia.

Accordingly, according to the expert, it is not entirely fair to say why the United States did not insist on sanctions against Russia after the Russian aggression of 2008.

“Even now, after so many violations by Russia, some Western European countries are resisting the imposition of tough sanctions against Moscow for a number of reasons, including fear of consequences for their own economies. In any case, taking into account the position of the countries and the circumstances of the situation, in 2008, after the Russian invasion of Georgia, the United States did everything to preserve the Georgian state, and Georgia was able to survive mainly thanks to the help of the United States,” concluded Toidze.

Recall that as a result of the Russian-Georgian war, in 2008 Russia recognized the independence of two Georgian regions – Abkhazia and South Ossetia – and transferred additional troops and weapons to their bases soldiers in these territories. All states in the world – with the exception of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru and Syria – recognize these regions as the territory of Georgia occupied by Russia.