Georgia: Finland Revisited?
Window on Eurasia highlights the opinion of a Moscow-based military analyst who likens the recent escalation of tensions between Georgia and Russia to the Winter War with Finland. According to Pavel Fel’gengauer, military affairs analyst for Moscow’s Novaya gazeta, Russia might have miscalculated.
Fel’gengauer, who is widely recognized as one of Russia’s most astute national security analysts, said that the Russia side had introduced forces into the Tkvarchel district that “unlike peacekeepers” have “artillery and heavy weapons,” a projection of force apparently intended to help drive the pro-Tbilisi “Abkhaz government in exile” out of Kodorskiy gorge.
That has long been a goal of the Abkhaz government, many of whose members believe that a major “cause of the non-recognition of the independence of Abkhazia” by Russia is that government and its role in maintaining Georgian control of the highland districts of their breakaway republic.
[…]
If events develop and get out of hand, “then Russia in reality will find itself in a worse situation than the Soviet Union did in 1939 in connection with Finland.” That is because whatever Russia’s diplomats or generals say, “in the contemporary world, no one will believe them.”
And consequently, Fel’gengauer argues in conclusion, unlike the Finns in 1939, “Georgia today will receive what it has always wanted – international support.
- Published:
- 05.08.08 / 6pm by Onnik
- Category:
- Analysis, Blogs, Georgia, Global Voices, Military, News Briefs, Opinion, Russia
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