US McCain Institute releases video illustrations of Russia’s illegal activities in Georgia’s occupied regions
The McCain Institute says that Russia began the erection of illegal barriers and so-called border signs on the Georgian territory in 2011, three years after the war with Georgia. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
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The US McCain Institute for International Leadership in cooperation with the Heritage Foundation and the Economic Policy Research Center has created two video visualisations showing Russia’s policy of ‘borderisation’ [erection of illegal barriers, barbed-wire-fences] in the two occupied regions of Georgia Abkhazia and Tskhinvali.
The institute says that Russia started the ‘borderisation’ process back in 2011, three years after the war with Georgia in 2008.
The video has been released by McCain Institute.
According to a study by the Heritage Foundation, borderisation is being implemented by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and local separatist forces in the occupied regions. 155 incidents have been reported so far,” the McCain Institute says.
They say that ‘borderisation’ includes constructing illegal fencing and earthen barriers to separate communities and the installation of so-called border signs.
In some cases Russia has taken even more territory in what can be described as a creeping annexation,” the McCain Institute says.
The institute says that the practice “is a clear violation of Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” dividing local families and communities “which leads not only to human tragedy, but also decreases the possibility for future peaceful reintegration of these territories.”
The McCain Institute has also provided an interactive timeline with detailed information on each of the documented incidents.
A mother living in Georgia’s Russian-occupied Akhalgori district was not allowed to leave the territory for several days to mourn her son who died in the Tserovani settlement, on Tbilisi-administered territory. The story caused public turmoil on social media, with the mother permitted to leave Akhalgori only late yesterday [while the young man died on September 22], Radio Liberty reports.
Georgian Minister for Reconciliation and Civil Equality Ketevan Tsikhelashvili has stated in parliament earlier today that at the moment she was delivering a speech in parliament, Georgia’s Russian-occupied Tskhinvali region was “was almost fully isolated” from the rest of Georgia.
Tbilisi has condemned the ‘temporary closure’ of a so-called checkpoint at the village of Perevi in western Georgia by the de facto government of Georgia’ Russian-occupied Tskhinvali region, saying that such steps not only violate the right of locals to free movement, but also create a humanitarian crisis.
The US is concerned by the current tension at the Tskhinvali occupation line and the closure of so-called borders which further complicates the situation on the ground and creates serious humanitarian problems, Acting US Ambassador to Georgia Elisabeth Rood said.