Military support for Ossetia and Abkhazia

Medvedev signs friendship agreements

MOSCOW – Russia signed today with the two separatist republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia agreements for cooperation, friendship and mutual assistance that formalize diplomatic, military and economic relations between the parties and, above all, lay the legal foundations for the permanence of the Kremlin troops on the territory of the two self-proclaimed Caucasian states.

The signing of the treaties took place in Moscow with the participation of the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, and the South-Ossetian and Abkhazian leaders, respectively Eduard Kokoity and Serghei Bagapsh, who underlined the opening of a “new era”, thanking Russia for “achieved security”.

Medvedev defined the relative “historic” ceremony, but also “the logical consequence” of the wars conducted against the ex-Soviet Republic by the secessionists in the early 1990s. However, it has not been limited to this: it has committed itself to guaranteeing the two rebel Georgian territories “all the necessary support, including the military one” and “not allowing any new war” that the Tbilisi government, called into question but without be explicitly quoted, intended to undertake.

“No one – the head of the Kremlin pointed out – must have illusions about this point”. The Russian president made it clear that, by virtue of the agreements just signed, the forces of his country will patrol the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia “jointly” with those separatist, for “the defense of state borders” and “in the interest of mutual security and peace and stability in the South Caucasus region “.

Moscow recognized the two entities as independents on 26 August, and on 9 September they established normal diplomatic relations with them; the only third state to have done so is Nicaragua, run by the government of the Sandinista Daniel Ortega.

September 17 2008