Every time that I write about the tension of the Georgian-Russian relations I suppose that there can be no more deterioration that this. And ever time it turns out that I am wrong. Today the war factor is behind and the diplomatic relations are annulled. So their communication is taking place with the help of the mediation of Switzerland. But it turns out there is still some space to go.
On Tuesday the Georgian President Mikhail Sahakashvili granted governmental awards to a group of staffers of the Internal Affairs Ministry of Georgia for arresting a number of spies. As it’s known those were arrested about 10 days ago. On November 5 the Georgian Rustavi-2 channel showed a whole film about this special operation. The date of the broadcast wasn’t chosen randomly. Russia was celebrating the day of intelligence. By the way, this holiday has remained on the calendar since the soviet era. The wish of the Georgian government to bite the Russian neighbor as firmly as possible is quite understandable because during the recent years this neighbor has shed a lot of blood and it later made an irretrievable step by recognizing the independence of autonomous regions of Georgia – Abkhazia and Ossetia. This was actually not a policy but the attempt of pressuring the weak one. Let us remember the history of the deterioration of Georgian-Russian relations when the culmination was the arrest of the four Russian Intelligence Bureau officers. The reason was not the fact of the arrest as itself as they are trying to catch spies in the entire world. The reason was that the extradition of the spies to Russia was done in such a demeaning way – in manacles during the parade of the Ministry of International Affairs of Georgia, who were escorted by girls in police uniforms, who more looked like fashion models than police officers. This has caused the discontent even among certain government officials of the country. This scenario was written with participation of the top figures of Georgia. They were openly saying that in the modern world it is not accepted to organize such shows and that the investigation of spy networks is being done without extra publicity. As a result even the exchange is being done not openly as in the “Shtirlits style.” And this show was followed by granting medals in Russia to these spies and the Georgians were sent back from Russia to Georgia in almost crammed transport airplanes. However, now the official Tbilisi is repeating its mistakes by publicly “teasing” Moscow. The arrest of 13 spies, 4 out of whom are Russians was followed by the cynical comments of various caliber politicians of Georgia. The garland of the “Information Masquerade” was the documentary film, which was telling how the Georgian government succeeded in revealing the Russian spies by sending its agent named Enver in the mentioned spy network and thus exposing their operations in the territory of Georgia. Prior to inquiring about the citizens of Russia to the Georgian side the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia had been silent for quite awhile. The note was passed to the Georgian side by the Embassy of Switzerland. The Georgian side promised to respond in the timeframe defined by the protocol. The current silence of Georgia is very much harming right now. It seems that the Georgian side is in euphoria by underestimating the situation by appearing in an embarrassing situation after their professional operation. At any rate, during the mentioned ceremony the Georgian President stated, “A huge monster is struggling against us but we will be able to beat it… With our efforts and cleverness we will be able to maximally neutralize it. Some are saying whether our relations wouldn’t become even tenser. I’d like to remind that Russia has seized an essential part of the Georgian territory. What else can be tenser than this? That country is trying to pillage and justify the occupation of the territories or Georgia and abandonment of 500 thousand people. We are fighting for absolute freedom… And as a result we will banish the seizers.” Perhaps all this is pretty much like that. However, after the war in 2008 often the question was how tenser can these relations become after all? But very soon the relations got even more exacerbated. The history has a feature of repeating. I wish I was mistaken at least now.