The Jamestown Foundation: “Russia Increases Military Capacity in the South Caucasus”

Russia’s recent "geographically broad, intensive and large-scale military exercises” are raising concerns about Vladimir Putin’s possible attempts to hinder the development of Georgia’s cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the European Union, writes Armen Grigoryan for The Jamestown Foundation.

The article published in print and online, uses media snippets from a variety of sources to describe Russia’s greater presence in the South Caucasus – in Georgia’s breakaway reigons Abkhazia, Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) and at a Russian military base in Armenia.

Georgia’s President said a "hybrid war” was under way in the South Caucasus, and Russia’s recent "strategic partnership” agreements with Abkhazia and South Ossetia had turned the situation in those regions from an occupation into an annexation.

"Russian sources have also been openly stating that the attempts to secure a land transportation corridor to Armenia after its admission to the EEU, as well as Russia’s closer cooperation with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, are aimed particularly at preventing Georgia’s deeper cooperation with NATO and the EU,” writes Grigoryan.

Notably, Russia has invested about $1 billion in reconstructing a previously abandoned highway approaching Georgia from the east, via Dagestan … [and] Georgian analysts and representatives of the country’s National Security Council explicitly consider this roadway a political rather than an economic project, he writes.

"That road will enable Russian troops to attack Georgia from a fourth direction, in addition to already existing invasion corridors from Abkhazia, Ossetia and Armenia.”

Read the full article here: www.jamestown.org