Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08MOSCOW2360
2008-08-12 12:29:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Moscow
Cable title:  

TFGG01: RUSSIA-GEORGIA: ANTI-US BACKLASH; NEW

Tags:  PREL PGOV MARR RS GE 
pdf how-to read a cable
O 121229Z AUG 08
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9431
INFO EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 002360 


E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/12/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV MARR RS GE

SUBJECT: TFGG01: RUSSIA-GEORGIA: ANTI-US BACKLASH; NEW
STATUS QUO?

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Eric Rubin: 1.4 (b, d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 002360


E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/12/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV MARR RS GE

SUBJECT: TFGG01: RUSSIA-GEORGIA: ANTI-US BACKLASH; NEW
STATUS QUO?

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Eric Rubin: 1.4 (b, d).


1. (C) Summary: Putin's harshly critical August 11 remarks
about U.S. interference and bias in the Russian-Georgian
conflict have set the tone for public and private accusations
of U.S. encouragement or stage-managing of Saakashvili's
decision to attempt to take Tskhinvali by force. The absence
of public criticism of Saakashvili or condemnation of the
killings in South Ossetia has been portrayed as either
Western cynicism or complicity. Among well-connected Kremlin
analysts and more moderate observers, we are hearing a
consensus that a status quo ante does not exist -- either for
Georgia and the separatist conflicts, or for Russia in its
relations with the U.S. and Europe. While our contacts
dispute any occupation scenario for Tbilisi, the Kosovo model
for Abkhazia and South Ossetia -- independence for one,
absorption into Russia for the other -- is taken as a given.
There is broad support for Russia's return as a preeminent
neighborhood power, even as there is little clarity on its
construct. End Summary

Putin Sets the Angry Tone
--------------


2. (C) Putin's angry August 11 remarks casting blame on the
U.S. for intensifying the Georgian-Russian conflict have had
immediate resonance. With Putin charging that the U.S.
transport of Georgian troops back from Iraq "practically to
the conflict zone" constituted cynical interference, and his
sarcastic jibe at the ability "of several of our partners" to
"skillfully categorize the aggressor as a victim of
aggression and lay responsibility for the consequences on the
victims themselves," the public and private assertions of
American stage-managing of the conflict have grown.


3. (C) While FM Lavrov's August 12 press statements were
slightly more moderate and focused on U.S. apparent inability
to control its client, there is pervasive commentary that
America orchestrated the hostilities. Anti-American pitbull
Mikhail Leontyev was featured on the August 11 nightly news
(whose audience has grown by a factor of three during the
conflict) directly charging that Saakashvili had acted on
Washington orders, with the Secretary giving the Georgian

President the green light during her last visit to Tbilisi.
Noting that Georgian defense coffers had grown 31-fold under
the U.S. umbrella, Leontyev said the maintenance, arming, and
training of the GOG forces was an American project. In his
telling, Saakashvili had been urged to take on the more
vulnerable South Ossetians, to humiliate the Russians and
open the door to a forceful resolution of Abkhazia.
(Kremlin-friendly youth groups heckled us behind police
barriers as we visited the Georgian Charge, yelling through
the megaphone that the Embassy had arrived to present the
Georgians with their marching orders on their next course of
action.)

Kremlin Talking Points on U.S. Culpability
--------------


4. (C) Reliable conduits of Kremlin/White House attitudes
underscore this message. In a heated exchange with us on
August 12, Ruling party Duma Deputy Sergey Markov charged
that there should be an investigation into how U.S. monies,
weapons, and training were actually used in Georgia. "We
heard for four years that U.S.-trained Georgian soldiers
would not be used to murder South Ossetians," Markov
commented, arguing that the failure of the U.S. to forcefully
condemn Saakashvili's military actions in Tskhinvali had
deeply disillusioned the Russian elite. Markov, who prides
himself on conveying the Kremlin party line, stressed that
"no one here sees Saakashvili acting in an individual
capacity." Having pleaded with Washington to halt the arming
of the GOG, Russians now held the U.S. responsible for the
military aftermath. Markov, echoing far more moderate foreign
policy observers, justified Russian attacks on Georgian
infrastructure and military targets, noting the U.S. bombing
of bridges in Belgrade when attempting to stop carnage in
Kosovo. "Who are you to complain?" In a less charged
language, Director of the Kremlin-funded Center for Effective
Politics Gleb Pavlovskiy stressed to us that the "military
improvisation" of Saakashvili was a "legitimate conversation
topic" that had begged a critical U.S. reaction. "We didn't
see one."

No Way Back
--------------


5. (C) Our contacts don't believe that Russia is headed for
a military takeover of Tbilisi, but are frank in their
assessment of a fundamentally different and "irreversible"
strategic environment. The nuanced variant of this new
Russian bottom line was spelled out to us by Carnegie
Center's Dmitriy Simes. According to Simes, Russian
strategic objectives, which continue to evolve, include:

-- Ensuring that Georgia cannot challenge Abkhazia or South
Ossetia militarily, through a legally binding no first use of
force agreement that recognizes both conflict territories as
co-equals to the agreement;

-- Consolidating Abkhazia as a de facto state and recognizing
South Ossetia's independence, in order to permit its gradual
merger with North Ossetia, with a security buffer around both;

-- Impressing upon the Georgian people that Saakashvili's
military adventure was "extremely detrimental" to Georgian
national interests and "helping them to decide" who is best
to lead their country; and

-- Working to create a new geo-political environment in the
Caucasus with Russia as the new leading power, as well as
preeminent power in the former Soviet Union. The message
that is being sent to Ukraine, he stressed, is "if trod upon,
Russia will bite back hard." Russia, he underscored, will no
longer let others tell it what Russian strategic interests
are.

-- Using all avenues to pressure Saakashvili and encourage
the disintegration of his political base, including calls for
a Hague-style "war crimes" tribunal.


6. (C) Both Pavlovskiy and Carnegie Center's Dmitriy Trenin
emphasized that Russia had not gone as far as it had
militarily only to be confronted with a status quo ante, in
which Saakashvili could again challenge Russian core
interests. If the frozen conflicts and NATO membership had
been the key challenges to Russia's policy towards the
Caucasus, Trenin maintained that Russian decision makers were
intent on using Saakashvili's miscalculation to fundamentally
change ground realities. This was the lesson that Putin
learned during the war in Chechnya, Trenin explained, when
powerful voices (Primakov, Luzhkov, and Chernomyrdin) urged
him to declare victory halfway. Putin persisted and won, and
was applying this model again. Trenin, Pavlovskiy, and
Markov separately agreed that there was no daylight in
Russian policy between Putin and Medvedev.


7. (C) When asked whether Russia had underestimated the
international reaction to its expansive military operation,
our contacts reinforce the fundamental policy disconnect
between Russia and the West over culpability. Anger over the
West's failure to condemn the Tskhinvali attacks -- either
bilaterally or through the Security Council -- shapes the
Russian decision making environment, and continues to
represent a strong current in Russian television broadcasts,
which portray Western outrage over Gori as cynical.
Parallels to Belgrade/Kosovo are more prevalent, with
moderate Russian analysts acknowledging the civilian Georgian
casualties, but ascribing it to the "collateral damage"
inherent in any war, and conservatives dismissing any
comparisons between the "genocide" in Tskhinvali and what
later ensued.


8. (C) Taking note of our strong condemnation of Russian
actions, Trenin acknowledged that there could be no status
quo ante in relations between Russia, the U.S. and Europe.
The strategic environment, he argued, was "profoundly
different." Russia, he predicted, was more ready for this
changed playing field than its U.S. and European
counterparts. Pavlovskiy also signaled a "fundamental"
change in the strategic situation in the Black Sea and
Caucasus, one that Russian leaders had yet to fully
understand. Noting concern throughout the Caucasus over the
events that had transpired, Pavlovskiy said Russia would move
to prevent any "vacuum" from emerging that would further
destabilize the region.

Saakashvili Who?
--------------


9. (C) As Lavrov said publicly, in his remarks with FM
Kouchner and Stubb, Russia will no longer engage with
Saakashvili, and quite a few Russian contacts refer to U.S.
policy towards Hamas as a point of comparison for the GOR
decision to ignore the democratically elected leader of
Georgia.

Comment
--------------


10. (C) To state the obvious, Russian views -- both
official and public -- are formed in an entirely different
policy context and understanding of "original sin" when
analyzing the outbreak of the war. What is brought home from
our conversations with policy analysts of widely divergent
political views is the consensus that Russia has successfully
transformed strategic realities in its neighborhood. Our
continued sense, despite the international uproar over
Russian actions, is that most Russians are proud of Russia's
reemergence and believe it both overdue and inevitable.
RUBIN


NNNN




End Cable Text