Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on anniversary of the August events of 2008 in the South Caucasus

Today, on the 14th anniversary of the beginning of Georgia’s military aggression against the people of South Ossetia and the Russian peacekeepers of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces in the zone of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict, we yet again pay the tribute to the memory of the victims of that treacherous attack and to the courage of those who sacrificed their lives to save the South Ossetian people from extirpation.

During the night of August 7-8, 2008, the Georgian armed forces, in violation of all international agreements on the settlement of the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict, launched a massive artillery attack on the sleeping Tskhinval and several other towns, after which the army units and the Georgian Interior Ministry special forces invaded the republic. At the same time, the positions of the Russian peacekeepers were stormed. The fact of Tbilisi’s uncalled-for aggression was also recorded in a report of the created under the auspices of the EU Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia, led by Heidi Tagliavini.

The criminal military adventure of Mikheil Saakashvili’s regime was not left unanswered: in the extreme circumstances, Russia successfully conducted a peace enforcement operation, and then recognised South Ossetia and also Abkhazia, which was facing the same fate, as sovereign and independent states and took them under its protection.

Another result of the Georgian aggression being repelled was the launch of a new negotiations track in Switzerland, the Geneva Discussions on Security and Stability in the South Caucasus. Their main task is to provide stable and reliable security for Abkhazia and South Ossetia by maintaining a direct dialogue between the two republics and the Georgian side. Due in a large part to this format, it has been possible to maintain an acceptable level of stability and security in the region.

However, this important dialogue platform has recently been overpowered by the politically motivated approach of certain players, guided by their egoistic interests. As the result, the Geneva format has been essentially frozen. For the past eight months, it has not been possible to hold the next, 56th round of the Geneva Discussions, which has been postponed twice this year. In addition, since the previous round in December 2021, we have not received any coherent explanations of the pause in the negotiation format. The current activity of its co-chairs is more like a simulation of an attempt to unblock the talks rather than a sincere desire to reach a real progress in this area.

The true underlying reason for the “games” around the Geneva Discussions is obvious to us: it is part of the revenge against Moscow by the collective West, aimed at isolating Russia for its special military operation in Ukraine. Thereby, the Geneva Discussions have become a hostage of geopolitics. We hope that our partners understand that by introducing illegitimate sanctions against Russia and other restrictive measures, the European Union (as a co-chair organisation), the US (a participant) and Switzerland (the hosting party) are creating additional serious challenges for the already difficult work within the Geneva Discussions and discrediting the format itself and the initial choice of the venue.

Having introduced transport and visa restrictions for the members of our delegation to put pressure on Russia, the Western partners have unilaterally changed the rules of the game and given considerable relevance to the question of whether the regular meetings should be moved from Geneva to a more acceptable and neutral place acceptable to all the participants.

In the meantime, the prospects for holding the postponed round of discussion are still dim. It is not our choice. All responsibility for the sabotage of the negotiation process and the repercussions of this lies with the initiators of these destructive actions and those pandering to them.