Anti-Georgia campaign heats up in Russia
Russian politicians were to vote today on a motion fiercely condemning Georgia’s pro-Western leadership as an anti-Georgia campaign gathered steam after Moscow imposed sweeping sanctions on the small neighbouring state.
The dispute looked set to persist after Russia rejected Western calls to end its blockade of its impoverished Caucasus neighbour. Police meanwhile were targeting the large Georgian population in Moscow with raids of businesses and restaurants.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said a transport and postal stranglehold slapped on Tbilisi yesterday would stand despite Monday’s release by Georgia of four Russian officers whose arrest last week angered the Kremlin.
Lavrov said the measures were aimed at cutting off criminal flows of money he claimed was being used by the Georgian leadership to increase its military might in preparation for the “forceful seizure” of two pro-Russian breakaway regions.
However, the real aim appears to be to punish Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili for his defiance of Russia through the detention of its officers on spying charges. The dispute also reflects Kremlin alarm at Tbilisi’s goal of Nato membership and the growing US influence in its former Soviet backyard.
A Kremlin official said the sanctions – a suspension of air, road, maritime, rail and postal links – would not be lifted until Georgia ended its “hostile rhetoric” toward Russia.
“The range of measures are a response to the situation and consequently their duration will depend on how long the hostile rhetoric (of the Georgian leadership) continues,” Modest Kolerov, the Russian presidential administration’s official charged with regional relations, was quoted as saying today by the Gazeta.ru news Web site.
Later this week, the Russian parliament is set to consider a bill that would allow the government to bar Georgians living in Russia from sending money home - which would deal a huge blow to Georgia’s struggling economy.
According to some estimates, about 1 million of Georgia’s 4.4 million population work in Russia and their families rely on the hundreds of millions of pounds in annual remittances.
Piling on the pressure, authorities in the Russian capital closed a popular Georgian-owned casino on the grounds that it lacked proper authorisation for its gaming tables and slot machines.
They also raided a hotel and a couple of restaurants run by Georgians, saying they could be closed over various legal violations, including one restaurant selling liquor without a licence.
The Kommersant daily newspaper quoted police officials as saying that 40 Georgian restaurants and shops in central Moscow alone would be raided in the next few days.
Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, meanwhile, said the pull-out of Russian troops in Georgia could be accelerated because of the tensions there.
He told reporters on a visit to the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek that Russia would “be withdrawing the Russian bases there according to the schedule, and maybe in an accelerated order. Because everybody understands the state of our soldiers and officers give the conditions that they are in there.”
Russia has 3,000-4,000 troops at two military bases in Georgia and pledged in a deal signed last year to withdraw its troops by the end of 2008.
Russia’s chilly relations with Georgia have worsened steadily since Saakashvili came to power following the 2003 Rose Revolution, vowing to take the country out of Russia’s orbit, reign in the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and join Nato in 2008.
Georgia accuses Russia of backing the separatists, which Russia denies.
At the United Nations in New York, Russia ratcheted up diplomatic pressure on Georgia by circulating a draft UN Security Council resolution Tuesday that would link the future of a UN observer mission with demands that the government stop “provocative actions” over Abkhazia.
The United States for its part urged Moscow to end the punitive measures, echoing a similar call from the European Union.
