Maj. Vyacheslav Malkov says that his Tu-22 was shot down on August 9 while on a recognizance flight over Georgia.
Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
It Still Feels like War in Georgia
Russian forces yesterday not only did not leave Georgian territory, according to Georgian authorities, they began to spread through the southwest and northwest from Gori. The city itself has been practically turned into a Russian military base and all approaches to it are controlled by the Russian military. Having given up on trying to keep up with the army, Kommersant correspondent Vladimir Solovyev met with Russian servicemen who are certain to remain in Georgia after for a while – the pilots of Russian planes shot down in that country.
The Tbilisi-Gori road is now the habitual residence of hundreds of Georgian policemen who are waiting for the Russian military to let them back into Gori and the surrounding villages. Dozens of jeeps full of armed police stand along the highway. They have been baking in the sun there for days now, but as the time since Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the ceasefire stretches on, fewer and fewer Georgians believe that the Russian army is leaving. Three Russian checkpoints have been set up between Gori and Tbilisi, where Russian infantrymen serve round the clock with armored vehicles and tanks camouflaged in the surrounding roadsides and hills to back them up. Only caravans carrying humanitarian aid from the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations are allowed to pass in the direction of Gori.
Journalists are being allowed through as well, and there is an entire army of them in Gori now as well. Russian soldiers defend themselves against the press as well as they can. Accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry and a permit to film are required of media personnel entering the buffer zone between Gori and Tbilisi. Journalists from Western publications who want to visit Tskhinvali and other points are expected to produce a Russian visa, as though South Ossetia were already no longer Georgian territory.
The Georgian army is standing at the perimeter of Tbilisi and is preparing to take its last stand, if need be. Russian Gen. Vyacheslav Borisov says that he has no plans of entering Tbilisi. “I’ve already been there. I came and left in this very jeep. That’s how their intelligence works,” he commented. When asked when the Russian army will begin leaving, he replied that everything is going by plan. That plan seems incomprehensible, however. Georgian authorities reported yesterday that Russian forces began to spread to the southwest and northwest from Gori. “The military is moving toward Borzhomi and Sachkheri and none of it looks like a withdrawal,” says Shota Utiashvili, head of the analytical department of the Georgian Interior Ministry. Georgia claims that strange things are happening in the areas where the Russian military appears. In Borzhomi, forest fires began after Russian Air Force helicopters flew over, and 350 ha. of unique trees were lost. In Moscow, they replied that the forest burned because there is a drought.
The Georgian Foreign Ministry they no longer even try to divine the plans of the Russian army. “The prize for the Russian army was all of Georgia, not just Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” says Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze. “All possible means were applied, but it didn’t work. What is happening now is the bloody leave taking.” Vashadze uses a metaphor to describe the situation Russia has found itself in.
“It’s like a person who is leaning over a chasm with a suitcase full of money. He can’t jump over with the suitcase, but he doesn’t want to leave it behind either,” Vashadze said.
While Russian forces are either spreading throughout various regions of Georgia or leaving the country, I decided to visit the Russian servicemen who are certain not to leave Tbilisi any time soon. They are two pilots, Maj. Vyacheslav Malkov and Col. Igor Zinov, who were shot down over Georgia in the first days of the conflict. After they were captured, they were placed in Gudushauri Hospital, one of the best in Tbilisi. It became known yesterday that they were transferred to a prison hospital on the edge of the city two days ago. That building looks like an old prison from the outside: metal gates, high fences, barred windows. The pilots are in a large room decorated with innumerable images of saints on the walls. On Maj. Malkov nightstand is a book by Georgian writer Grigol Robakidze, Megi: A Georgian Girl. It was originally reported that the pilots received only minor injuries in the crashes, and that seems true at first glance. Their arms and legs are swabbed with antiseptic and they have a few bandages on them. There are scratches on their faces. But, as we talk, it comes out that Malkov, whose Tu-22 was shot down on August 9, broke his back.
“We received our initial care at Gudushauri,” the major said. “They nearly had to sew my arm back on.”
Col. Zinov, who was flying a Su-24 when he was shot down, received burns. His back was not broken, but he cannot walk yet any way. I tell him that the Georgian media consider him the pilot that bombed Gori. He denies it.
“Our target was groupings of forces and military hardware. On our first run, the navigator wasn’t sure that that was what was under us. When we made the second run, we were shot down,” the colonel says.
Zinov does not know where that navigator is now. Malkov is also unsure of the fate of the three members of his crew.
“Our Tu was equipped for aerial photography. We were conducting recognizance, when a rocket hit us,” he says.
The captured pilots are not complaining about the conditions of their confinement. They say no one has visited them from the Russian embassy, but Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s wife Sandra Roeloefs has.
“What did she say?” I asked.
“Nothing good,” the major answered. “We talked about who needs this war.” Then he turned toward the wall.
Vladimir Solovyev
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 19, 2008
|
|
|
