Firstly, Russia applied economic sanctions. Russia had applied sanctions before that too (embargo, closing of the border, etc.). The only difference in the situation is the fact that Russia didn’t describe the mentioned actions as “sanction” before, however, now they are using that description.
Russia imposed blockade on Georgia and stopped its connection with Georgia, and now Georgians are flying to their country via other countries. The Georgians will have to act in the same manner after Russia stops making money transfers to Georgia too. For your information, these actions were suggested by the head of “Rodina” party, Alexandr Bobakov. There were rumors as well saying that Russia was going to multiply the prices for gas supplied to Georgia, nevertheless, “Gazprom” company informed “Regnum” that the mentioned rumors were not true. In the recent period when reading the press coverage concerning the Russian-Georgian relations it seems that you are reading a report prepared by the Russian police. They have started arresting new people. It is worth writing about some of them.
They have arrested a group of criminals consisting of 12 Georgians in Orlov district. It turned out that the mentioned criminal group has been involved in car robbery and sale during these three years.
According to “Commersant” newspaper, the police officers of the Privoljie district have discovered a “very active” criminal group consisting of 50 criminals. The mentioned group was formed by Georgians and backed by two famous criminals. According to the information of the Russian police, the mentioned group covered its activities in the name of a company and was involved in sale of contraband. “The money was sent to eastern banks and then transferred to Georgia”, writes the statement of the Russian police. On October 3, the Russian police arrested a famous criminal in Moscow named Gia (nick name is Vaja). The police found heroin with the mentioned person.
During a meeting of famous criminals in a restaurant in Moscow named as “Golden Elephant” the Russian police arrested 16 persons, 4 out of which were famous criminals (one of them is famous with his nickname “Edik from Tbilisi”).
The Russian police arrested a group of criminals consisting of 5 Georgians involved in robbery of car parts and accessories. In addition, the Russians are checking up the activities of Georgian businesses in Russia and closing them. First, they found violations in one of the biggest casinos of Moscow, “Crystal”, second, following the previous one they checked the activities of “Golden Palace”. Among the restaurants and hotels that belong to Georgians and have been closed are the following ones too: “Tbilisi place”, “Baccara”, “Genatsvale VIP”. These actions are in process and are becoming widespread in Russia. For instance, only in Privoljie district the Russian police discovered 113 law violations on the part of Georgians, arrested 64 citizens of Georgia and found 11 weapons that were kept illegally. Please note that all these actions were done during the recent 3-4 days. In fact, the Russians have decided to give a payback to the Georgians for arresting their citizens. However, the difference is the fact that the Russians are not accusing the Georgians in espionage since it is bad for the reputation of their special services. It is difficult to imagine a Georgian spy in Russia. During several days the Russian police discovered many crimes that were not discovered during many years. It sounds well. If those crimes really have been discovered only recently, it means that the Russian police does not work well. If they knew about that before, but started arresting them only recently, it means that the police was connected with those crimes too. However, there is another logical version too: the police is arresting without any justified reasons. These facts are going to be criticized by the international community, especially by judicial organizations. Nevertheless, Russia does not care about that since usually such things are only declarative statements. Russia doesn’t keep it in secret that those actions are targeted against Georgians. In a word, it is a payback. It is interesting that often Russian officials say that those actions are not targeted against Georgians, but against the existing Georgian authorities. However, they don’t want to confess that those actions are not undermining the authorities, but are good for their reputation. As a proof of the abovewritten we may discuss the example of the local government elections. According to the preliminary information, the team of Saakashvili won the elections almost in all the precincts.
The Russians say as well that the mentioned action targeted to “struggling against ethnic criminal groups” does not concern the Georgians that follow the law in a duly manner. Nevertheless, the “Commersant” writes that the Russian police has ordered several schools in Moscow to give them the addresses and details of the Georgian pupils of their schools. The paper writes that after getting the mentioned information, the police was going to find it out where the families of those people lived, where they worked and whether they paid the taxes or not. In parallel with that process “the skinheads” are becoming more active being encouraged by the government. According to the Georgian press, those groups have killed a sports champion, Georgi Gvichina. The relatives of the champion say that he has quarreled with Russians after the recent conflict of Russian with Georgia. This governmental policy will activate such nationalistic groups and thus the situation may become uncontrollable. Also, the head of the “Indim” regional public foundation, Georgi Saratov predicted such developments. “Suddenly you see a person that you thought was intelligent and a normal person speaking nonsense things about nationalistic discrimination. Everyone has this character, the state has started a game with that feeling, which is very dangerous”, said Saratov. The sanctions are imposed on Georgia, however, the skinheads don’t care about who you are; they don’t care about whether you are from Georgia, Armenia or Azerbaijan. The danger of being beaten or killed by small ugly skinheads has increased and it may become uncontrollable.
As for the Russian-Georgian conflict, Armenia is faced with a big problem and does not know whom to advocate and where to develop its interests. We have kept a neutral position so far; however, if the situation becomes worse we will have to make a choice. As for our interests, we can imagine what Russia can do with us since there are many Armenians in their country too, in addition, in difference with Georgia we don’t have any entrance to the sea, our border with Turkey is closed and 80% of the energetic system in our country is managed by Russia. It is very pity that this cloudy vision is discovered after the 15th independence anniversary only.