US support to Georgia’s Saakashvili angers Putin

MOSCOW - Reuters

Russia accused the United States on June 6 of encouraging Georgia to seek revenge against Moscow for a 2008 war, a day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised new U.S. military support for Tbilisi.

In a strongly worded statement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the United States’ support of Georgia’s bid to join NATO, as well as “massive supplies of arms from abroad” encouraged a strongly pro-U.S. and pro-NATO politician Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s “criminal adventures” that led to the five-day war.

On June 5, Clinton pledged U.S. support for the training of pro-Western Georgia’s military in coastal defense and underscored Washington’s rejection of Russia’s “occupation” of two regions.

‘False theses’

“We reject Russia’s occupation and militarization of Georgia’s territory and we call upon Russia to fulfill its obligations under the 2008 ceasefire resolution,” she said according to Agence
France-Presse.

“Senior U.S. officials have once again made strong statements in support of Saakashvili, word for word repeating the false theses of his propaganda regarding the ‘Russian occupation of Georgia,’ thus fuelling the revanchist aspirations of Tbilisi,” Lukashevich said in the statement, Reuters reported. Russia sent troops into Georgia, routing the South Caucasus country’s military, after Georgia’s U.S.-trained military attacked the pro-Russian region of South Ossetia.