Translated material
Time to pick up the pieces
Georgia invited Russia to investigate the “missile incident”
Russia will take part in the investigation of the incident involving the fall of a Raduga anti-radar guided missile in the Gori region on August 6. Yesterday, Ivan Volynkin, Minister Counselor of the Russian Embassy in Georgia, told Vremya Novostei that “soon, in response to the proposal of the Georgian side, Russia will send its experts to Georgia.” “We will definitely join the investigation,” the diplomat concluded. According to the Georgian Foreign Ministry, a mission of 25 Russian military personnel will arrive in Tbilisi today.The director of the political department of the Georgian Foreign Ministry, David Dondua, said the day before that cooperation can be carried out in a bilateral format. According to him, Tbilisi is ready to share the data it already has and hear Moscow’s arguments. Since the beginning of this week, the circumstances of the incident in the village of Tsitelubani have been studied by an international expert group consisting of seven specialists from the USA, Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia. However, since Tbilisi hastened to blame Moscow, the representatives of Russia and Georgia themselves were not included in the group - in order to ensure impartiality. Thus, if the Georgians and Russians get down to business, it will become a parallel investigation. In addition, Russian peacekeepers from the Joint Peacekeeping Forces in the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict continue to work at the site of the rocket crash.
“The investigation should prevent impunity,” Konstantin Gabashvili, chairman of the Georgian parliament’s committee on external relations, told VN. “We must tell the truth that Russia hit Georgia, so that in the future this will not be permissible.”
Georgia expects that international experts cooperating with the OSCE will present a conclusion within the near future. However, as Salome Zurabishvili, the former minister of foreign affairs and leader of the Georgian Way opposition party, told VN, “the invitation of these specialists is part of a PR campaign.” “After all, radar data on airspace violations either exists or it doesn’t. What else needs to be investigated here? The expert opinion is only needed by our government to support its position, but note that many countries approached this cautiously and did not send their representatives, waiting for the OSCE assessments,” she said. According to Ms. Zurabishvili’s forecast, the experts’ verdict on “Rainbow” will be half-hearted: “Russia will not be directly accused of aggression, but they will show support for Georgia as a whole.”