In Transcaucasia, the Russians bent everyone, even Tbilisi - Georgian diplomat
There are no winners or losers among the participants in the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, but Russia has found itself in the most advantageous position, expanding its presence in the region and also achieving completely unexpected results, such as Georgia’s open skies.
The former Ambassador of Georgia to Holland Shota Guineria stated this during the Lvov Security Forum, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“I want to say that there are no winners and losers in this conflict. I would say that the Russians have benefited the most because they have certainly increased their influence in the region, their presence. They have ground forces in three different countries, they have a base in the occupied part of Georgia, a legal base in Armenia and now they have a so-called peacekeeping force in Azerbaijan.
Therefore, they actually doubled down on their tools of pressure on Armenia and Azerbaijan, dealing with the big problem of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh by partially transferring control of part of the territory to Azerbaijan, while the Armenians lost a lot of things, but the Russians clearly conveyed to the Armenians that they had much more to lose.
Therefore, by intimidating Armenia with the fact that they will lose more, they also conveyed to Azerbaijan that in fact there is one key player there, despite Turkey’s ever greater ambitions and increasing role in that region, but now that player is Russia,” Guineria said.
“What the Russians have lost is their reputation as a reliable partner and the importance and value of their defense guarantees. Therefore, the question here is how the whole world views this, since Armenia was a strategic long-term partner, there were bilateral agreements on mutual defense. But what did this give the Armenians in the end?” – the Georgian added and emphasized that, in his opinion, the Russians “punished the Armenians for their dreams of democracy.”
“When the conflict ended, at least the hot stage, we heard from the Georgian leaders that they lifted this ban - they opened the airspace. Accordingly, both Armenia and Azerbaijan asked Georgia to open airspace for the Russian peacekeeping contingent to fly to their location.
Of course, this was a big surprise for me too. I understand that for the Russians this is the best way to get their peacekeepers there, the shortest and cheapest, of course there were alternatives, this could have been done in a different way. Therefore, they put pressure on Georgia to open this path.
Why do not I understand. Why did the Georgians need to simplify this matter for Russia, since it still occupies our territories and there is still their military trace in our region. Why did Georgia decide to take this action? This is incomprehensible to me,” the ex-diplomat lamented.
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