Atlantic Council

NATO foreign ministers will meet in Brussels today to, in the words of the April 3 NATO Bucharest Summit Statement, “make a first assessment” on Georgia’s quest for membership in the alliance.  In the aftermath of Russia’s August attack on Georgia, a Membership Action Plan (MAP) is not now politically possible.

Ukraine is seeking to repair relations with Russia as its hopes of entering NATO fade, the Times reports:

"The reappraisal comes amid debate in Kiev about the wisdom of antagonizing the Kremlin, particularly after the confrontation between Russia and Georgia in the summer.

President Yushchenko of Ukraine has ordered a policy review in an effort to defuse tensions with Russia over his country’s pro-Western leanings.  The shift is an acknowledgement that friction between Kiev and Moscow has made it harder for the European Union and NATO, particularly members such as Germany and France, to embrace Ukraine."

The news comes as NATO foreign ministers meet for a two-day summit in Brussels where the U.S. has backed off plans to push for Georgian and Ukrainian Membership Action Plans (MAPs) into the alliance.  The policy review marks a major change from Yushchenko's earlier stance:

"It is a remarkable change of tone for Mr. Yushchenko, who has raised fears about Russian aggression in Crimea.  He had also accused Yulia Tymoshenko, his rival and Orange Revolution ally, of 'high treason' for failing to condemn the Russian intervention in South Ossetia and Georgia in August."

At the same time, the Independent notes that Saakashvili is pressing NATO not to abandon its promise of membership to Georgia (and Ukraine) at the Bucharest summit last April:

"The Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, has urged NATO members to bury their differences and agree to a 'compromise' that would accelerate his country's membership of the Western military alliance, despite the fallout from Georgia's six-day war with Russia.

[...]

'Membership is the goal,' President Saakashvili said during a teleconference call from Tbilisi.  'How to get there is secondary.'  The Georgian leader believes that the diplomatic fudge at the NATO summit emboldened Moscow to retaliate with crushing force by invading Georgia proper when the Georgian military launched an offensive against the breakaway territory of South Ossetia last August."

Mission accomplished for Russia?

A humorous post from Brian Whitmore at RFE/RL's Transmission blog – "Talk About War Profiteering!:"

"A new Russian computer game called 'Confrontation – Peace Enforcement,' which simulates a new war between Russia and Georgia, is due to appear in shops in December.

In the game, NATO member Poland supports an effort by Tbilisi to take back the breakaway South Ossetia region, while Ukraine blockades Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.  Russia then launches an attack on Georgia in response.

The Prague-based Bohemia Interactive Studio, meanwhile, has a new game in the works that looks at the Russia-Georgia conflict from a pro-Western perspective.  According to The Moscow Times, the game stars a group of U.S. soldiers who intervene in a conflict in 'Chernarus,' a fictional ex-Soviet republic that strongly resembles Georgia."

The true test will be in which game sells more copies...

Accusations that Ukraine improperly sold arms to Georgia during its August war with Russia continue to plague the Ukrainian political system.  NYT:

"It may not matter that the [pro-Russian] opposition has provided no conclusive evidence of the claims, despite weeks of pronouncements that the evidence — once released — will be explosive.  The claims alone, which have made headlines, have nonetheless helped to further undermine the government’s authority at a time of heightened political instability, while also roiling Ukraine’s already tense relationship with neighboring Russia.

At issue are accusations that the government of President Viktor A. Yushchenko, who supported Georgia during the crisis, covertly supplied it with weapons before and soon after the fighting broke out in August, and sold tanks and an antiaircraft system to the Georgians at reduced prices.

A parliamentary commission set up by Ukraine’s opposition parties has been investigating the claims, which also include allegations that the president decommissioned equipment sorely needed by Ukraine’s military and gave it to Georgia."

Yushchenko denies wrongdoing, noting that Ukraine has the right to sell arms to any country not under international sanctions, including Georgia.  So what's the problem?

"The opposition lawmakers say the point is not whether Ukraine had a right to sell weapons to Georgia. They say the government secretly sent the arms, bypassing disclosure rules in order to avoid antagonizing Russia.  They also say that some of the proceeds of the sales have gone not to the Treasury, but to people in Mr. Yushchenko’s circle, even as Ukraine’s military is in dire need of funding."

Similar accusations have been leveled at Yushchenko for months from Moscow.  Putin even described the alleged weapons sales as a "crime against the Russian and Ukrainian people" at a meeting with Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in early October.  Surely the fact that the main opposition party, the Party of Regions, is broadly pro-Russian will not influence the evidence in parliament's report...

For his part, Yushchenko has vowed to continue Ukraine's arms sales to Georgia.

Related Posts:

• Russia Claims Evidence of U.S. and NATO "Mercenaries" in Georgia
• Russia Agrees to Ukraine Gas Prices, Criticizes Kiev's Support for Georgia

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice will meet with NATO ministers to discuss controversial plans for proposed Ukrainian and Georgian membership of the alliance. Financial Times:

The US wants to defuse tensions with other Nato members on when Georgia and Ukraine will join the alliance by focusing on internal political and security reforms both countries must accomplish before they can join.

As she prepares for a two-day meeting of Nato foreign ministers tomorrow, Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, has said Washington will not press for the two former Soviet republics to gain immediate entry to the alliance's Membership Application Plan (Map).

Nato members agreed at a Bucharest summit this year that Georgia and Ukraine would eventually become members. But Germany, France and other states made clear the immediate offer of Map - a key stage in the Nato application process - would be seen by Russia as provocative.

Last week Britain had suggested finding other ways to bring the two countries into the alliance, and the U.S. seemed to back away from plans for full membership. The meeting will also focus on a new security architecture for Europe proposed by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

Yet another shooting incident has taken place on the Georgia-South Ossetia border.  AP:

Georgian and separatist South Ossetian authorities are accusing each other of opening fire across the line of control in the ex-Soviet republic. Nobody was hurt, but the accusations have added to tension following the August war that strengthened Russian and separatist control over Georgia's South Ossetia region.

The South Ossetian government said Sunday that a village came under sporadic automatic-weapons fire from Georgian-controlled territory for several hours late Saturday. It said South Ossetian forces did not return fire. Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili acknowledged that Georgian forces fired shots but said they were responding to gunfire from South Ossetian-controlled territory.

What's most noteworthy here is the seemingly universal treatment of South Ossetia as a de facto separate state.

According to RFE/RL, the U.S. dropped plans to push for Georgian and Ukrainian NATO membership at an alliance meeting scheduled in December:

"U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on November 26 pulled back from offering Georgia and Ukraine a formal roadmap to join NATO and said Britain had proposed finding other ways to bring them into the alliance."

Speaking from Havana after a meeting with Cuban leader Raul Castro, Medvedev welcomed the move, saying:

"I am satisfied common sense prevailed.  Whatever the reasons, European pressure or whatever else, the main thing is that they [Washington] no longer push ahead with their previous ferociousness and senselessness."

Details of the proposed alternative means for the two countries' entry into NATO remain unclear.

Germany will be either a world power or it will not be at all. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1925. Russia can either be big and strong or it will cease to exist. - Dmitry Medvedev, speech to senior military officers, The Kremlin, September 30, 2008.

RFE/RL reported today that the office of Russia's Prosecutor-General claims to have evidence that U.S. and other NATO mercenaries participated in the Georgia conflict in August:

"Russia has evidence that citizens from NATO member states including the United States and Turkey fought for Georgia in the five-day August war, Russia's top investigator has said.

[...]

Asked to list the nationalities of the foreign fighters it believes were involved, Aleksandr Bastrykin, head of the Prosecutor-General's investigative committee said: 'America, the Czech Republic, Chechnya, the Baltic States, Ukraine, and Turkey.'

'It was a fairly small number of people.  They mainly fulfilled support roles,' Bastrykin told reporters in Russia's second city of St. Petersburg.  He said some had conducted training for the Georgian armed forces.  'There were also two snipers ... one from Ukraine and I believe a Latvian woman,' he said.

He said he considered the presence of foreign fighters a criminal offense and said he would bring it up at a meeting with representatives of Interpol."

Interpol will likely get right on the case...  Georgia's National Security Council secretary Kakha Lomaia replied, "The statement that almost half of the world was fighting in our army in August is just a fantasy of those in the Russian leadership...."  The Russian claims echo accusations made by Putin last month that Ukraine gave military support to Georgia during the invasion:

"[Putin criticized] Ukraine's arms deal with Georgia, its diplomatic support for Tbilisi, and its desire to join NATO.  He speculated that Ukraine may have provided military support for Georgia during its conflict with Russia, RFE/RL reported.  Putin said, 'If this is confirmed, this will be what I have called a crime, because this is termed 'direct involvement in an armed conflict,' pitting Russian and Ukrainian peoples against each other.'"

One can't help but feel this is timed to coincide with the recent controversy over shots fired near the Georgian presidential convoy as it approached the de facto border with South Ossetia.

News broke over the weekend that shots were fired as a convoy carrying Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili and Polish president Lech Kaczynski approached South Ossetia.  There were no injuries, and the convoy returned safely to Tbilisi.  Predictably, Georgia is blaming Russia, and Russia is blaming Georgia.  Reports vary significantly.  RFE/RL wrote:

"A spokeswoman for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russian troops manning a checkpoint in the area fired the shots.  The spokeswoman was not present at the scene.  [However,] a witness traveling with Saakashvili told Reuters that uniformed South Ossetians fired the warning shots after the convoy came within 30 meters of the de facto border."

The Independent quoted comments by Saakashvili from the BBC's World Service radio.  As usual, he didn't shy away from the dramatic:

"Frankly I didn't expect Russians to open fire.  I thought they clearly saw that this was an official cortege, this was a high delegation.  Clearly it was intended as a provocation, certainly I would never intend to put the life of the president of Poland in danger, that was none of my intention but the reality is that you know you are dealing with unpredictable people."

The incident comes as Georgia marks the fifth anniversary of the "Rose Revolution" that brought pro-Western Saakashvili to power, highlighting the country's continued instability and the increasing challenges to the president's rule.  According to the Australian, Saakashvili also said:

"Aggression continues in Georgia.  The ceasefire and the European Union-brokered agreement are being violated.

[...]

We were attacked because of the success of the last five years, it was the last challenge of the empire against us.  We have never faced such a dangerous threat.  We need strength and unity.  We must believe in the future and have courage.  Instead of celebrating... we must show unity as we did on November 23, 2003."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov got his two cents in as well:

"This is a clear provocation.  It is not the first time they are doing so.  They are organizing the provocation and then blame the Russian side.  Inviting the [Polish] president to Tbilisi and then taking him for a car ride to a different country – isn't that a provocation?  There was no shooting from either the Russian or the Ossetian side."

The EU will almost certainly not view the event as demanding a review of the Russian-Georgian ceasefire – nor is there consensus that it should.  Similarly, Kaczynski's call for further assistance to Georgia will most likely do little:

"I appeal from this spot to my friends in the European Union to draw the proper conclusions from this event before it is too late.  ...  I do not regret that trip along that dark road."