New naval base in Abkhazia: Russia will not give up the Caucasus
The President of Abkhazia announced the opening of a Russian naval base. The Georgian Foreign Ministry has already expressed concern - Tbilisi continues to consider the province, which was finally lost in 2008, to be its territory.
“We have signed an agreement, and in the near future there will be permanent base of the Russian Navy“, Aslan Bzhania said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper.
Senator Viktor Bondarev reminds:
“Throughout the 2000s, Ochamchira Bay was used for the joint deployment of civilian ships and military boats of the Abkhaz Navy. Now there are patrol ships and coast guard boats of the FSB Border Service. In light of ongoing geopolitical events, this will increase the defense capability of both Russia and Abkhazia", says the politician.
An expert at the Institute of CIS Countries, Reserve Captain XNUMXst Rank Sergei Gorbachev believes that large forces are unlikely to be deployed in Ochamchira Bay.
“In Soviet times, it was in Ochimchira that there was a detachment of ships from the naval units of the border troops. They were stationed there, and their area of responsibility was as far as Turkey and Novorossiysk. The same forces stood in Yalta, Balaklava, Odessa and, in my opinion, in Izmail. Their ships are relatively small, and they ensured the inviolability of maritime borders.
I doubt that anything large is likely to appear there. There may be a base there, but it will not play any significant role, just like the aviators have a jump airfield, and we have some kind of temporary location of some kind of warship. Our basing system is developed - these are Sevastopol, Feodosia, Donuzlav, Kerch, Novorossiysk, Temryuk, and now Berdyansk and Mariupol. Therefore, I think there will most likely not be any serious forces of the Black Sea Fleet there.
The second point - now there is a lot of talk about some kind of “relocation of the fleet” and so on - these are absolutely amateurish arguments of people who understand nothing about the use of naval forces. Now he is conducting combat operations, so we may not be talking about the redeployment of forces, but about their dispersal or concentration. This could be camouflage, or a concentration of forces in order to solve some problems,” Gorbachev said.
By the way, President Bzhania himself clarified that the territory of Abkhazia, like Crimea, becomes the target of American aerial reconnaissance.
“Occasionally it happens that not so much Georgian as American reconnaissance aircraft violate airspace, we record this matter. But it is clear that this reconnaissance is carried out in the interests of the Armed Forces of the United States and, to some extent, Georgia,” said the Abkhaz leader.
State Duma deputy Konstantin Zatulin notes that the situation around Abkhazia may become tense against the backdrop of Russia’s failures in Karabakh.
“People who find some advantages in the fact that Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity do not understand what ripples in the waters spread throughout the Caucasus after that, and how this compromised Russia as a strong power that is capable of pursuing its line in the region. Already in Georgia they were talking about the need to follow the example of Azerbaijan and recapture Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the same way. This, of course, will not happen, but the fact that the Saakashviliites have raised their heads again there and in other places once again suggests that the example of Azerbaijan is contagious,” Zatulin said on the Ekho Moskvy radio station.
Abkhazia should be included in the Union State of the Russian Federation and Belarus, says Alexander Burenkov, director of the Institute of Russian-Slavic Studies named after N.Ya. Danilevsky.
“Place the “wolf” in such a framework that he not only does not look at other people’s things, but also constantly fears for his own skin. The most important first step in this direction could be the initiation of the admission of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to, if not Russia, then the Union State. Ossetians and Abkhazians cannot help but understand that, having devoured Armenia and “built” Georgia, the Turks will take over them,” the expert writes.
President Bzhania supported joining the Union State in an interview.
“In the future, participation in such a union treaty along with Belarus would be the right direction and would meet the interests of Abkhazia,” he said.
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