September 3, 2008
Russia President Dismisses Georgia’s Leader as a ‘Political Corpse’
By ELLEN BARRY
MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia said Tuesday that he no longer recognized Mikheil Saakashvili as the president of Georgia, calling him “a political corpse” in his most lacerating words to date about a government Moscow wants to force from power.
In an interview with the Italian television channel RAI, Mr. Medvedev adopted a combative tone more often associated with his predecessor, Vladimir V. Putin.
Like Mr. Putin, he speculated that the war in Georgia was intended to benefit one of the candidates in the American presidential election, almost certainly a reference to Senator John McCain. He said the United States armed Georgia and then “gave Mr. Saakashvili carte blanche for any actions, including military ones.”
Asked whether he would participate in Italian-brokered negotiations with Mr. Saakashvili, Mr. Medvedev responded sharply. “For us,” he said, “the current regime has gone bankrupt. The president, Mikheil Saakashvili, doesn’t exist for us. He is a political corpse.”
The Russian president made his comments a day after the European Union issued a statement strongly criticizing Russia for its military offensive in Georgia, but stopped short of imposing sanctions.
Russian leaders fanned out across the region for talks in neighboring countries, acting swiftly to try to consolidate Russia’s position, even as Vice President Dick Cheney left Washington on Tuesday on a trip to Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Georgia, former Soviet republics that have strong ties to the United States.
Mr. Putin, in Uzbekistan, announced an agreement to build a new natural gas pipeline to Russia from Central Asia, frustrating European and American efforts to ship oil and gas directly to the West. A Western-backed pipeline project, Nabucco, is now in doubt, as it would have to pass close to South Ossetia.
Over all, Moscow greeted the European warning as a victory. The Baltic nations, Poland and Britain had pushed for concrete sanctions, but the European leaders agreed on only one measure, a threat to postpone talks on a strategic partnership with Russia, combined with the written reproach.
Mr. Medvedev made it clear that he was stung by the criticism from Europe, which condemned Russia’s actions as “a disproportionate response” to a Georgian attack on separatists in South Ossetia. Asked whether the conflict was headed to a cold-war-type standoff, he cast Russia as the aggrieved party and referred pointedly to the Bush administration’s plan to place a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
“I would like our respected partners to pay attention to the fact that we are not the ones broadening the borders of military presence, it’s NATO,” he said. “We are not the ones creating new bases, it’s NATO. We are not deploying the missile defense system, it’s NATO.”
“We were in constant dialogue” about the planned missile defense system, he said. “We asked why we needed it. But since the decision has been made, if the radar is going to be turned on, we have to respond to this. Because we got no reasonable explanation of why it was done.”
The long-simmering conflict in Georgia escalated quickly on Aug. 8, soon after Georgian troops attacked the capital of the separatist enclave of South Ossetia.
Moscow, which has long supported the separatists, responded by sending troops deep into Georgian territory, saying it was necessary to protect its citizens. Although South Ossetia is within Georgia’s borders, many people there carry Russian passports.
Last week, Russia formally recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a second separatist area on the Black Sea coast, as independent states. So far, no other country has followed suit. Though Russia has withdrawn most of its forces, peacekeeping troops remain in a “buffer zone” outside the enclaves, which France says is a violation of the agreement.
On Tuesday, Russia made it clear that its military remained on alert. Officials in Moscow said Georgians were rebuilding their ruined positions near South Ossetia, and Mr. Putin suggested that the United States was shipping military supplies to Georgia under the guise of humanitarian aid.
“Why is it necessary to deliver humanitarian aid on military vessels?” asked Mr. Putin, in Tashkent for talks with the Uzbek president, Islam A. Karimov. “And on ships that are armed with modern missile systems?”
On Sunday, Mr. Putin was in the Far East checking on the construction of a trans-Siberian oil pipeline to China, emphasizing that Russia could find alternative export markets to Europe.
On Tuesday came the announcement of the new Central Asian pipeline, which would carry 900 billion to 1 trillion cubic feet of gas per year and run parallel to the Soviet-era pipeline system, called Central Asia-Center.
