With Putin’s invasion of Ukraine failing, Will Neal looks at the Kremlin’s ‘frozen’ conflict with another neighbour. Will Russia try to score a victory there?
Valia Vanishvili lives in Bobnevi. Rather, she lives in half of it. Her village falls squarely along the ‘administrative boundary line’ between Georgia and the occupied territory of so-called South Ossetia. Several years ago, she and her husband woke one morning to find Russian soldiers building a barbed wire fence across the foot of their orchard. It took them two weeks, and she’s been trapped on the other side ever since.
With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Georgia’s delicate geopolitical situation, as a country where more than twenty per cent of its sovereign territory is controlled by Russia, has been thrown into sharp relief. So far, with its hands full executing Putin’s ‘special military operation’, Moscow has shown little appetite for stoking tensions in the borderlands, perhaps also owing in part to a notably muted response to the conflict from the ruling Georgian Dream party.
However, Georgia’s president has warned that now is not the time for falling asleep at the wheel, with renewed interest from South Ossetian authorities in the issue of contesting the boundary line begging the question of how long this calm is likely to last.
All Quiet on the Western Front
Since the earliest days of independence from the Soviet Union, ethnic conflict in Georgia has seen Russian forces stationed in the separatist regions of Abkhazia to the west and South Ossetia in the north. After an armed confrontation near the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali escalated into a twelve-day war between Russia and Georgia in 2008, the Kremlin formally recognised these territories as sovereign states, with its soldiers remaining posted in both today.
While the invasion of Ukraine initially raised alarm over the prospect of renewed aggression from Georgia’s breakaway regions, the European Union’s Monitoring Mission in the country says the situation along the administrative boundary line has proven, all things considered, relatively quiet. The Georgian government has also adopted a largely neutral stance on the conflict, repeatedly declining to join sanctions against the Putin regime despite widespread international criticism, in an ongoing bid to avoid provoking Moscow.
Even so, Georgian president Salome Zurabishvili noted in a recent interview that the situation remains unpredictable. “I don’t think Russia will invade Georgia now, but we are already seeing the humiliation of Russia and the fact that they are losing this war,” she told the BBC. “They made a lot of miscalculations, and maybe, at some point in time, for internal reasons, Russia will be tempted to score points in Georgia, where it is easier.”
Last year, the South Ossetian parliament set up a commission to review the current placement of the de-facto border. Specifically, “a discrepancy [of] more than 200 sq. km” just west of the occupied region, “to the detriment of the legitimate territorial interests of the Republic.” That commission has since finished its preliminary inquiries, with its findings apparently soon set to be passed back to the chamber for further debate.
What this may mean for future relations with the breakaway territory is an open but nevertheless fraught question. Ian Kelly, a former US ambassador to Georgia, speculates that renewed talk of the issue may indicate Russia’s willingness to test the balance of tensions in the region, but that ultimately, allowing the line to be contested right now would make little strategic sense. “I don’t see that it’s necessarily in [Russia’s] interests to destabilise this government, given that Georgian Dream is playing along,” he says. “While it could be a trial balloon of sorts, to see how they respond, I’d be surprised if they pursued it.”
Director of the Georgian Institute of Politics, Kornely Kakachia, offers a similar assessment but stresses it’s important to assume a longer-term view of Georgian security. “It all depends what kind of situation Russia will find itself in with Ukraine, in terms of Putin’s image,” he explains. “If they decide for the sake of public opinion, especially with him up for reelection in the next two years, they need a success story, well then they could start a new war.”
For David Katsarava, founder of the activist group Strength in Unity, which monitors the de-facto border, the issue is far more clear-cut. “This plan, unfortunately, is entirely realistic, and I believe so-called South Ossetia will do their best to realise it,” he says. “If there’s a reason it hasn’t started yet, it’s the war in Ukraine, but I’m ninety-nine per cent sure it will happen. It’s just a question of when.”
Creeping Borders
That relations with South Ossetia have proven relatively calm for the time being is not to say there’s any real quality of life to be had for people immediately on either side of the line.
Valia Vanishvili owns a small farm. Two cows, a few chickens. There are pear and apple and walnut trees in her orchard, intersected by rolls of razor wire that cut through the heart of Bobnevi, a short drive north of Tbilisi. “I’ve not received my pension in five months. If I try to cross the wire, I’ll be arrested,” she says. “I cannot visit my daughter who lives on the other side. Ever since my husband died I’ve not been able to embrace her, and I can’t go to his grave, because the Russians don’t allow me.” As Vanishvili speaks, two border guards move through the bushes further down the hill to take up post behind a wooden shack, watching her every move. She’s eighty-nine years old.