Daily Signal: 10 Years After Putin’s Invasion, Russia Still Occupies Parts of Georgia

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Georgia, a former Soviet territory, during the summer of 2008. Photo: Alexei Nikolsky/Zuma Press/Newscom.
Agenda.ge, Mar 02, 2018, Tbilisi, Georgia

The US political publication, the Daily Signal, has dedicated an article to Russia’s illegal actions on the territory of Georgia after ten years of the Russia-Georgia 2008 war. 

The author of the analytical story, Luke Coffey, who is a director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, paid particular attention to the most recent case of Archil Tatunashvili, a 35-year-old man who died in unclear circumstances in Georgia’s occupied Tskhinvali region on February 23. 

The tragic case of Tatunashvili is the latest reminder of the threat Russia poses to its neighbors and America’s partners in the region,” the article reads.

Coffey states that since the 2008 invasion, South Ossetia and Abkhazia essentially have become large Russian military bases, with thousands of Russian troops and hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles stationed in both regions.

Even though the 2008 cease-fire agreement, which brought an end to the short war, allows the EU mission to enter the occupied side, Russia continues to prevent this,” the author says.

Coffey claims that in recent years, "Russia has increased tensions in Georgia.” 

Since 2011, FSB and separatist forces have implemented a policy of 'borderization' in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This includes constructing illegal fencing and earthen barriers to separate communities and further divide the Georgian population,” the article reads.

Coffey underscored that  the research carried out by The Heritage Foundation has found 56 incidents at 48 different locations of Russian borderization in Abkhazia and South Ossetia since 2011—an egregious attack on Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Read more here.