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2 Missile row magnifies Russia's
concerns By Federico Bordonaro
Moscow complained this week that the
United States and Europe accepted Georgia's
interpretation of an incident that occurred on
August 6, when a Russian-made anti-radar missile
(a Kh-58, called AS-11 Kilter by the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization) fell on Tsitelubani,
South Ossetia, in Georgia. Sweden, Latvia and
Lithuania joined the US in a panel of experts
whose mid-August report confirmed Georgia's claims
that the rocket fell from a Russian aircraft,
which flew over Georgian airspace for about 23
minutes.
An in-depth
analysis of the incident reveals that Moscow's
accusations against an alleged Georgian plot are
unlikely to be true since Georgia's air force
simply lacks the capabilities for such a strike.
Right after the incident, Russian officials
advanced the hypothesis that the Georgian Air
Force could have bombed the disputed, breakaway
South Ossetia region and blame it on Moscow, but
Georgian Sukhoi-25 fighter jets are not capable of
performing that type of operation. Military
analysts currently believe that the Kilter was
dropped by a Russian Su-24.
The tactical
reasons for the action remain unclear. However,
the use of an anti-radar rocket may have two
explanations. Politically, it could mean a strong
message to Tbilisi: Russia will not sit idly while
Georgia offers the US clear collaboration for
Washington's eastern Europe anti-ballistic-missile
projects. Furthermore, Russia could be suggesting
that it will not allow Georgian military forces to
storm South Ossetia without making Tbilisi also
"feel" its presence there. Also, dropping (and not
firing) an anti-radar rocket augments the
probability that material and human damages would
be contained - which proved to be the case.
On the basis of the already elaborated
evidence, some important political-strategic
issues emerge. First of all, Moscow is clearly
pursuing its goal to weaken Tbilisi indefinitely
by exposing Georgia's repressive military actions
in South Ossetia (and in the other breakaway
region, Abkhazia) as counterproductive toward a
comprehensive settlement of the conflict.
At the same time, Russia is trying to
maintain strong ties with the region's steadfast
separatist groups. Moscow has, in fact, the
capabilities to remain influential in the wider
Black Sea region's frozen conflicts (Transnistria,
Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh).
While Ukraine remains fundamental to Russia's
geostrategy and security policy in the region and
in Europe, Georgia is now the most heated
battleground in the Russo-Western struggle for
power and interests in the former Soviet Union.
A long series of military incidents The Kilter incident in South Ossetia came five
months after three villages in another disputed
region, Upper Kodori (Abkhazia) were reportedly
attacked by Russian ground-to-ground rockets and
anti-tank guided missiles. The United Nations
Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) came to this
conclusion after it examined data submitted by
Georgian radar systems. Moscow, though, has
officially denied that such data were reliable,
and has claimed that no Russian Air Force flights
were operating in the area on March 11 and 12.
UNOMIG also declared that it obtained no
answer from Moscow about the serial numbers found
on the residues of the Russian-manufactured
weapons. The March Abkhazian incidents followed
years of strained Georgian-Russian relations.
Moscow had repeatedly accused Georgia of failing
to assist Russian efforts to fight Chechen
activities in the Pankisi Gorge region. In
November 2001, the US State Department issued a
worried communique after Russian military forces
attacked alleged Chechen rebels in the
above-mentioned area with helicopters. Other
incidents were reported in the following years.
However, Tbilisi's relations with Moscow
deteriorated even further after Mikheil
Saakashvili became president of Georgia on January
25, 2004. Saakashvili vowed to end Georgia's
security dependence on Russia by forging closer
ties with the US and joining the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) as soon as possible.
Moreover, he wholeheartedly supported US-backed
efforts to set up oil and gas pipeline networks as
an alternative to Moscow's rising Gazprom-inspired
networks.
Georgia is now the catalyst for
Russo-Western tensions in the wider Black Sea
region. Abkhazian and South Ossetian issues must,
therefore, be understood in this wider analytical
framework. Ethnic conflicts in Georgia,
Russo-Georgian rivalry, and great-power politics
all intervene to make the context extremely
complicated.
While Tbilisi accuses Moscow
of actively supporting armed separatists in
Georgia's breakaway regions for years, the West
sides with Georgia, but only cautiously. France
and Germany, and thus the core of the European
Union foreign-policy force, do not really question
the involvement of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the wider
Black Sea region's conflicts. However, since
Moscow retains veto power in the OSCE, Russia can
easily counter US attempts to weaken Russian
regional influence.
The timing of the
incident also raises questions. Russia is
saber-rattling and, just as in the Cold War years,
strategic bombers are now regularly flying again
beyond Russian airspace. Russian
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