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The Bitter Taste of Victory
// The price of the question
It was somewhat strange at the height of the Russian-Georgian conflict to see Mikheil Saakashvili at street meetings in Tbilisi assuring his people that Georgia, in spite of it all, had won. The victory, in his words, was that the Georgian army had fewer losses than its opponent. And they destroyed more Russian armored vehicles than airplanes. But his greatest accomplishment, Saakashvili claimed, was that Russia had to employ 1200 tanks in Georgia. “The USSR didn’t employ that many in Hungary or Czechoslovakia,” the Georgian president declared triumphantly to the roaring crowd.
The fact that Georgia lost the August war is visible to the naked eye. You had only to go a few dozed kilometers out of Tbilisi. I saw the proof of that loss. The Georgian army’s bombed warehouses and the burnt slums of Gori. The bombed railroad bridge in the village of Grakali and smoke rising from the forest around Borjomi after attacks by Russian aviation. Refuges trudging exhaustedly away from the conflict toward the capital. And, of course, most of all, the loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. That gloomy picture was complete at odds with Saakashvili’s victory concept.
Saakashvili remained resolute, however. He received U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the presidents of Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine at his residence and repeated to them all, like a mantra, that his country would have no trouble restoring itself when the fighting ended. He threw in some indications that Georgia’s economy is the fastest growing in the region and that Georgia had practically defeated corruption, as was necessary for success.
Russian authorities spoke of their victory no less than the Georgians. Declaring “the aggressor punished,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev presented awards to those who demonstrated “the best traditions of the Russian army” in battle. Building on that success, the president signed decrees recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Sukhumi and Tskhinvali thus also joined the winners’ circle. It seems that the tiny but noisy war in the Caucasus had only winner and no losers. But every victory has its price.
Russia plans to locate military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia and take control of the borders of the unrecognized republics. In exchange, Moscow will make their support a separate entry in the federal budget. The Ministry of Regional development has already calculated that about 35 billion rubles will have to go to restore South Ossetia. Georgia will reap the fruits of its “victory” beginning next month, when the billions of dollars of Western aid begin rolling in. But the question is whether it was worth $4.5 billion to lose a third of its territory. Abkhazia and South Ossetia also have something to think about. For example, was it worth it to fight so long for independence from one country to wind up in such complete dependence on another?
Vladimir Solovyev
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 23, 2008
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