Latest in series of surprise operations sees Russian troops erect new ’border’ markings several hundred metres deeper into disputed region

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old



Georgia has accused Russia of violating international law after it erected new “border” markings in the disputed South Ossetia region, effectively seizing part of a BP-operated oil pipeline in the process.



While European leaders were focused on resolving the Greek crisis over the weekend, Russian troops were installing the new signs, pushing their self-declared border several hundred metres deeper into Georgian territory.

“We’ve lost most of our fields,” said a farmer from Tsitelubani, one of the villages in central Georgia affected by the move. “The Russians said we are no longer allowed there.”

According to Georgia’s foreign ministry, the move means that a one-mile (1.5km) section of the Baku-Supsa pipeline beneath this farmland is now in what it called occupied territory.

It is the latest in a series of similar surprise Russian operations, which critics say are part of its creeping annexation of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian territory.

Graphic Location of pipeline and disputed territory

Russia has occupied the two regions since 2008 in violation of an internationally agreed ceasefire following its brief war with Georgia. But most countries regard South Ossetia and Abkhazia as part of Georgia – with the pro-Russia separatist authorities in eastern Ukraine among a tiny handful of bodies to have recognised them as independent.

An earlier Russian fence-building operation in the same area led to another Georgian farmer being cut off from the rest of his village.

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Officials from the EU’s monitoring mission (EUMM) say one new sign has been placed 300 metres south of a previous marker near the village of Orchosani, while another has been moved 1km further south near Tsitelubani.

They would not say whether this meant Russia had seized territory beyond South Ossetia’s disputed administrative boundary line. But spokesman John Durnin said it was a clear sign that what he called Russia’s “borderization” policy continues, which “creates obstacles to freedom of movement and the livelihoods of the local population”.

One new Russian- and Ossetian language sign declaring the area as part of South Ossetia is just a few hundred metres from Georgia’s main east-west highway, linking the capital with its Black Sea ports and neighbouring Turkey.

During the 2008 war, Russian tanks used the same road to move on Tbilisi, stopping 20km short of the capital but demonstrating Georgia’s vulnerability.

The Baku-Supsa pipeline carries up to 145,000 barrels of oil a day from Azerbaijan’s Caspian oil fields to Georgia’s Supsa terminal on the Black Sea. Its strategic importance was made clear just before the 2008 war, when BP had to use it to re-route oil to western markets after its larger BTC pipeline across Georgia was closed by an explosion.

No doubt conscious of its huge interests in Russia, BP has sought to play down the dispute. “It doesn’t change anything,” said Gia Gvaladze, the oil company’s chief spokesman in Georgia. “We don’t need physical access to maintain it.”

There has been no comment so far from the Kremlin, but analysts say, as in Ukraine, keeping everyone guessing as to its intentions is part of its strategy with Georgia.

Some see it as a sign of Moscow underlining its opposition to the former Soviet republic joining Nato and the EU, mirroring its position in Ukraine. Russian officials denounced recent joint US-Georgian military exercises here, aimed at helping it join the alliance.

Russia has also been infuriated by the appointment of Georgia’s pro-western former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, as governor of Ukraine’s key Odessa region, right next door to Crimea. The outspoken Saakashvili has become a symbol of resistance to Russia’s efforts to maintain its hold over its erstwhile domain in the former Soviet Union. During the 2008 war, Vladimir Putin famously threatened to “hang Saakashvili by his balls”.

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This sudden flare-up is hugely embarrassing for the Georgian Dream coalition government, which said it wanted to reduce tensions with Russia when it took office three years ago. Instead, Moscow has further entrenched in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Diplomatic ties between the two neighbours are still suspended, but Georgia’s special envoy to Russia, Zurab Abishidze, has vowed to raise what he called this “dangerous provocation” at a planned meeting with Russian officials later this week.

In reality there’s not much Georgia can do – and western leaders have their minds elsewhere. The European council president, Donald Tusk, has postponed a planned visit to Georgia this week because of the Greek crisis.

Many here believe the west failed to heed the warning signs from the 2008 war about Russia’s wider ambitions.

However, renewed tension in the Caucasus comes after America’s top military official, Gen Martin Dempsey, recently labelled Russia as a rising threat to global security, focusing on the danger from what he called its “hybrid-conflict” strategy in eastern Ukraine.

Such tactics, warned Dempsey, “serve to increase ambiguity, complicate decision-making and slow the coordination of effective responses”.