Strongman

by Roxburgh, Angus

  The war and its consequences

  President Saakashvili, who had announced a ceasefire at 19:00 on 7 August, ordered his forces to attack Tskhinvali at 23:35. A huge artillery bombardment, using tanks, howitzers and Grad multiple-rocket launchers, destroyed swathes of the city and caused many civilian casualties. Georgian ground troops moved in. Russian peacekeepers were killed, as well as many Ossetians, who by virtue of Putin’s ‘passportisation’ policy were now Russian citizens. The Russians evoked ‘genocide’, claiming 2,000 civilians had been killed in the Georgian attack, a figure that proved to be grossly exaggerated. The next day hundreds of Russian tanks poured through the Roki tunnel, with massive air support. Over the next five days 40,000 Russian troops entered Georgia, half of them through South Ossetia, the others through Abkhazia. They quickly drove Georgian forces out of Tskhinvali and proceeded into Georgia proper, bombarding the city of Gori, attacking airfields and army bases across the country, and even destroying the port of Poti, many miles from the disputed areas. Hundreds of thousands of Georgians fled their homes as Russian forces headed south towards the capital, Tbilisi. In Gori, South Ossetian militias rampaged through the empty city, while Russian troops turned a blind eye. Eventually, international diplomacy brought hostilities to a halt, and the Russian advance stopped. The five-day war left 850 dead and 35,000 people displaced from their homes.

  Such are the basic facts, but how and why it all started was, and remains, a subject of bitter dispute. Shortly after the initial assault on Tskhinvali, Georgia’s military commander, Mamuka Kurashvili, appeared to confirm that President Saakashvili had decided to press ahead with his long-held desire to re-conquer South Ossetia, when he told reporters that Georgia had ‘decided to restore constitutional order in the entire region’. It was later said that this statement had not been authorised, though Saakashvili himself announced that ‘a large part of Tskhinvali is now liberated’. The Georgians later tried to justify their actions by claiming that they had resorted to force only to counter a huge Russian invasion that was already under way, but most observers (including the EU mission) say there is no evidence of a large-scale Russian invasion in the hours before the Georgian attack. Indeed Saakashvili himself did not make such a claim at the time, and the Georgian government told a UN Security Council session on 8 August that ‘at 05:30 [that day] the first Russian troops entered South Ossetia through the Roki tunnel’. In interviews conducted two years later with several members of the Georgian government, they seemed hopelessly confused about the timeline.

  That the Georgians attacked first, and that it was an attempt not to repulse a Russian attack but to retake South Ossetia, is also confirmed by a conversation the Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski had with his Georgian counterpart Eka Tkeshelashvili the day before the attack on Tskhinvali. ‘Eka called me and said they were going to establish constitutional authority over South Ossetia. What I understood was that they were moving in. I warned her not to overplay their hand and to be very careful, because allowing yourself to be provoked would have dire consequences.’22

  The fact that President Medvedev was on holiday on a Volga riverboat, Prime Minister Putin was in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games and foreign minister Lavrov was in the middle of Russia (four-and-a-half-hours’ flight from Moscow), and all had to rush back to Moscow to deal with the crisis, also suggests that Russia was taken by surprise and did not instigate the attack – even though its army was clearly well prepared to respond.

  So why did this war erupt when it did? Only a week or so earlier, Georgia’s leaders had been on holiday. Their best troops were serving in Iraq. Although Saakashvili wished to regain the lost territories, he appeared to be giving diplomacy a last chance. As late as 7 August, Georgia’s negotiator, Temuri Yakobashvili, even went to Tskhinvali for planned talks that failed to materialise (because the South Ossetian side refused to take part and the Russian special envoy failed to arrive, saying he had a flat tyre). Russia, it is true, had been sabre-rattling – but mainly to dissuade Georgia from attacking rather than because it was contemplating an attack itself; Moscow in fact had little to gain from attacking Georgia and had never (despite claims to the contrary) shown any desire to annexe or even recognise the two regions. Its clobbering of Georgia and subsequent recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent ‘states’ should not be seen as retrospective proof that this was what it intended to do all along.

  It seems to me that right up until the eve of battle neither side was seriously planning to go to war (though both were preparing for it). That would mean that the fatal decision was taken at the last minute by Saakashvili and his closest advisers. Perhaps they felt that the world’s eyes were on the Olympics in Beijing; perhaps they weighed up everything they had heard from the Americans recently and decided that, on balance, they would have their support; perhaps they really were given intelligence (even if it was false) that the Russians were already streaming through the Roki tunnel; perhaps they saw the failure of the Russians and South Ossetians to turn up for talks with their negotiator as an ominous sign, and Medvedev’s evasiveness and hint that ‘things could get worse’ as a threat; perhaps they jumped at what they thought was an unexpected opportunity to retake South Ossetia. Whatever the reasons, the decision confirmed the worst fears of Saakashvili’s American and other Western colleagues – who liked him, respected him, loved his democratic credentials, but were very alive to his unpredictability, his impulsiveness, even his instability. One of the enduring images of the war is of Saakashvili, recorded by a BBC camera as he waited to go on air for a live broadcast, nervously stuffing the end of his tie into his mouth. The Russians leapt on this as proof of his ‘insanity’. But many of his Western colleagues also had their doubts. When Angela Merkel had talks with him as a peace settlement was being thrashed out, he was extremely agitated, drank from an empty glass and knocked a bottle of water across the table.

  One senior American official (extremely close to Saakashvili) witnessed a top-level get-together in Tbilisi, after midnight, a few weeks before the war: ‘My impression was just – what a rip-roaring and disorganised way to make really important decisions. But it is the Georgian way – it is at least how that group does things. I mean, they weren’t drunk, they weren’t juvenile or stupid, they were just kind of shooting the breeze. I came in and they said, “You say we don’t have an interagency coordination process, well this is how we do it. Would you like some wine?” ’

  Though it was Georgia, in the end, that lit the touch-paper, it was Russia that found itself in the dock for the conflagration. Partly, this was because views were coloured by the initial international television coverage of the war, which showed little, if any, of the Georgian bombing and destruction of Tskhinvali and a great deal of the subsequent Russian bombing of Gori. That in turn happened because the Russians kept journalists out of South Ossetia, whereas the Georgians positively encouraged the press to go to Gori. The BBC’s foreign editor, Jon Williams, noted in a blog: ‘It’s not been safe enough to travel from Tbilisi to the town of Tskhinvali in South Ossetia, the scene, say the Russians, of destruction at the hands of the Georgians. Not until Wednesday – six days after the first shots were fired – was a BBC team able to get in to see what had happened for themselves, and then only in the company of Russian officials.’

  The role of PR advisers in the war has been much written about, and much exaggerated. Georgia’s principal asset was President Saakashvili himself, who gave a constant stream of interviews, in fluent English and French – without, I fancy, much encouragement from his Western PR team. Moscow, on the other hand, steadfastly resisted the urgings of its PR advisers to allow journalists to travel to South Ossetia, and only belatedly began to offer English-speaking interviewees to stations such as the BBC and CNN.

  But the main reason for the opprobrium heaped upon Russia rather than Georgia was because – whatever the circumstances – it invaded a neighbouring, independent country. It did this in ord
er to prevent that country from doing something absolutely legitimate under international law – restoring (albeit in brutal fashion) its territorial integrity in precisely the same way as Russia had restored its rights over Chechnya. The Russian leadership was incapable of seeing this parallel. It accused the West of tolerating Georgia’s aggression, forgetting that the West had by and large also tolerated Russia’s much more brutal assault on Chechnya. Both cases were seen by the West as internal affairs. Attacking a foreign country is different. As the Russian journalist Andrei Kolesnikov of Novaya gazeta put it, ‘Russia behaved as if it were the mother country and Georgia was its remote, rebellious province.’

  The result was the dismemberment of Georgia, a sovereign state, and the permanent displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, mainly Georgians, from their homes on land that they and their ancestors had inhabited for centuries. In the case of Abkhazia, the Russians effectively handed the territory, now ‘ethnically cleansed’ of Georgians, to a tiny nation who prior to 1991 had comprised just one-fifth of the population.23 One-sixth of Georgia’s territory is now occupied by Russian troops.

  In Beijing, only hours after the Georgian assault began, Vladimir Putin met both President Bush and President Sarkozy. Both tried to caution restraint in Russia’s response, and both were rebuffed. Putin was no longer commander-in-chief, but he acted as if he was. Sarkozy introduced Putin to his son, Louis, who received a warm hug – but that was the last of Putin’s friendly gestures. Sarkozy’s aide, Jean-David Levitte, recalls his boss’s attempt at peacemaking. ‘He said to President Putin, “Listen, I currently hold the presidency of the EU and I can make the EU do everything possible to stop this war, a war that would be a catastrophe for Russia, for Europe, and for Russian and European cooperation. But for that, Vladimir, I need 48 hours.” The answer? “Nyet.” So President Sarkozy said, “Hang on, Vladimir, do you realise what’s at stake here? At least give me 24 hours.” “Nyet, impossible.” The president said, “Well, give me until 8pm.” “Nyet.” ’24

  It was President Medvedev, though, who took the decision to send in Russian forces. He claims, somewhat improbably, that he did not even discuss the matter with Putin for 24 hours, due to the absence of a secure line to Beijing. Medvedev says that he was woken by the defence minister to be told of the attack on Tskhinvali, but hoped it was just a provocation. It was only when he was told that a tent full of Russian peacekeepers had been hit, killing them all, that he gave the order to counterattack. Anyone who believed that Medvedev was a ‘softie’ compared to the strongman Putin would be mistaken. It was the president (he says) who ordered the invasion – without even consulting his Security Council. The Council did eventually meet, and supported the decision, but this was still before Putin arrived back from China. Eventually Putin returned, flew to Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia, to see the situation on the ground for himself, and then to Sochi, where he finally met Medvedev to discuss the situation.25

  On the second day of the war, Russian bombers flew 120 sorties, aiming to destroy Georgia’s defence infrastructure – including all the shiny new hardware acquired from the USA, Israel and Ukraine.

  The next day Condoleezza Rice, who had just started a vacation with her aunt and sister at the luxury Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, called Sergei Lavrov and demanded an end to the invasion. The conversation became a major bone of contention between the two. Lavrov said the Russians had three conditions: ‘First, the Georgians have to go back to their barracks.’

  Rice said, ‘OK.’

  ‘Second, they have to sign a non-use-of-force pledge.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And three, just between us, Saakashvili has to go.’

  Rice could not believe her ears: ‘Sergei, the American secretary of state and the Russian foreign minister do not have a private conversation about overthrowing a democratically elected president.’26

  She decided to go public with what she regarded as a Russian threat of regime change in Georgia. On 10 August the US envoy to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, announced: ‘Foreign Minister Lavrov told Secretary Rice that the democratically elected president of Georgia – and I quote – “Saakashvili must go” – end of quote. This is completely unacceptable and crosses a line.’

  Lavrov was incensed. He said in an interview: ‘To announce to the entire world what you have discussed with your partner is not part of our diplomatic practice.’ He did not entirely deny that he had said it, though, but insisted he merely indicated ‘that we would never deal with him again’.27

  By 11 August the Georgians, having seen Gori bombarded and emptied of its citizens, believed the Russian army was planning to move on the capital, Tbilisi. There was panic in the president’s chancellery: pictures were taken off the walls, documents stuffed into boxes in readiness for a quick evacuation. Carl Bildt and the American envoy, Matt Bryza, were there, calculating they had little more than half an hour before the Russians would enter the city.

  Saakashvili appealed to President Bush for the help he thought had been promised. ‘I told him, “Look, right now, on your watch, you might see the reversal of the demise of the Soviet Union. It might be restored right now in my country, and it would be a very sad turn of history – for us certainly, for us it would be the end – but certainly for the US and for the world.” ’28

  His allegation that Russia was about to enter his capital and reincorporate Georgia into some new version of the Soviet Union could have been seen as either paranoid, manipulative or simply as a disingenuous attempt to cover up his own calamitous decision to go to war. But Medvedev later indirectly confirmed that, while ‘our mission at the time was to destroy Georgia’s war machine’, more radical options were considered: ‘Saakashvili should be grateful to me for halting our troops at some point. If they had marched into Tbilisi, Georgia would most likely have a different president by now.’

  The threat was taken seriously in Washington, especially in view of Lavrov’s comment to Rice. Bush convened his national security team. Defence Secretary Robert Gates recalls: ‘There was a clear feeling on the part of virtually everybody in the situation room that the Russians had flat out committed an aggression against an independent state, and were proceeding to dismember it.’29

  The Americans even contemplated intervening militarily themselves. According to Secretary of State Rice: ‘There was a little bit of chest beating around the table about what we would do and about how we could signal the Russians militarily, that this would be a foolhardy thing to do.’

  National security adviser Stephen Hadley says: ‘The issue was, do we put in combat power or not? What you needed was ground troops if you were going to save Tbilisi.’30

  But that would have risked conflict between the world’s greatest nuclear powers, and voices such as that of Robert Gates urged caution: ‘I was pretty adamant that we not give weapons assistance to Saakashvili. My feeling at the time was that the Russians had baited a trap and Saakashvili had walked right into it, and so they were both culpable.’

  In the end, the Russians stopped and turned around, and the Americans no longer needed to consider a military response. They did send navy transport planes to Tbilisi airport, and warships through the Black Sea to the port of Batumi, to deliver humanitarian aid (and even that infuriated the Russians), but the decision was to let diplomacy work. Despite considerable misgivings about the competence of President Sarkozy, they decided to allow France, which at that point held the rotating presidency of the European Union, to take the lead.

  Although the Russians maintained at the time that only Medvedev was involved in the talks with Sarkozy, Putin was there too, predictably playing the hard man. It was during those talks that he declared, ‘I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls.’ (The Russians denied the report, but Putin has since himself indirectly confirmed that he did use the expression.31)

  Sarkozy took with him to the talks a draft agreement which Lavrov says, ‘we corrected a little bit’. In fact the six-point document was
almost obliterated with amendments, so that, for example, the first sentence read ‘The Georgian and Russian forces will withdraw fully.’

  Sarkozy’s adviser, Jean-David Levitte, recalls: ‘They’d completely changed the logic, it was no longer a ceasefire, it was no longer a retreat of troops, it was essentially a way of imposing a kind of diktat on Georgia.’

  Sarkozy proved to be, in the words of President Medvedev’s adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, ‘tough, very tough’. Eventually he tired of the Russians’ negotiating tactics. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘we’ve been going round in circles with this draft. I’m picking up my pen and writing a new draft. Right, first of all the conflicting parties agree to the non-use of force. Agreed – yes or no? Yes.’

  There then followed five more points: cessation of hostilities, free access for humanitarian aid, Georgian forces to withdraw to their normal bases, Russian forces to withdraw to their position before the outbreak of hostilities, and international talks to be held on the future status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

  Point 5 contained an extra clause which would soon cause trouble. ‘Pending an international mechanism’, Russian ‘peacekeepers’ were to put in place ‘additional security measures’. That was a fluid prescription, which Moscow would use to justify maintaining its troops in a wide security zone, and even in parts of Georgia proper, long after the peace deal went into force.