Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Borislav Agadzhanov
[REGNUM] Political confrontation between nationalist organizations in 1990-1991 quickly led Georgia to civil war.
Continued from Page 5
The war in Abkhazia, which began on August 14, 1992, was characterized by a special, previously unheard-of for armed conflicts that took place in the Soviet and post-Soviet spaces, the level of robbery and looting. Numerous and diverse Georgian armed formations located on the Abkhazian territory were engaged not only and not so much in the conduct of hostilities, but in continuous robbery. Everything that was possible was plundered: city apartments and rural houses, industrial and agricultural enterprises, infrastructure facilities, warehouses, educational institutions, institutions of science and culture.
Large quantities of personal and state vehicles were stolen. It is noteworthy that not only the Abkhaz, Russian, Armenian, Greek population was subjected to total robbery, but also the Georgian population itself. Guardsmen, members of the Mkhedrioni, the military police and the so-called "volunteers" who did not obey anyone in general did not spare anyone. Entire convoys with loot came from Abkhazia in a continuous stream. From the "trophies" even railway echelons were formed.
A special feature of the war in Abkhazia was the pronounced vandalism of the Georgian militants. Cultural and scientific institutions were not only plundered, but often deliberately damaged and even destroyed. So, in Sukhum, the Abkhaz Institute of Language, Literature and History, the Central State Archive of Abkhazia, and the Russian Drama Theater were first looted and then burned.
The Abkhaz State Museum, the Republican Library, and the Abkhaz Drama Theater were looted and badly damaged. The cultural and scientific heritage of Abkhazia suffered irreparable damage. The world-famous unique Sukhumi monkey nursery has not survived either. By the beginning of the war, about 2,000 monkeys were kept there, and a year later only 37 individuals remained in the nursery. The rest either died or scattered around the neighborhood, or were taken out by Georgian militants for the purpose of their further sale on the black market. It is noteworthy that the Georgian, Russian and world public preferred not to notice all this. The media, human rights activists, cultural figures, scientists were silent, pretending that nothing was happening.
Such wholesale looting and terror against the civilian population very quickly led the Georgian armed formations to almost complete decay. Their already low combat capability had fallen to the bare minimum.
After the plans of official Tbilisi that the hostilities would last only a few days and end with a triumphant victory for the Georgian side did not come true, the security forces of Georgia faced the problem of a constant shortage of personnel for the full-fledged introduction of war. As already mentioned, there was a very significant number of various kinds of Georgian armed formations in Abkhazia. But, in view of the fact that a significant part of them were exclusively engaged in robbing the population, and the rest had extremely low discipline, the Georgians could not manage to create the necessary numerical superiority over the Abkhaz directly on the front line.
Therefore, the Georgian authorities were faced with the need to replenish personnel through mobilization. But the Georgian state apparatus was completely organizationally unable to carry out a full-fledged mobilization, since it itself functioned with great difficulty. In addition, a full mobilization was not desirable for political reasons. A significant part of Georgian society would have met the mobilization with great hostility. This was especially true of the Mingrelians and supportersZviad Gamsakhurdia .
Therefore, the authorities limited themselves to the implementation of something like partial mobilizations, carried out extremely stupidly. In particular, in Tbilisi, such "mobilizations" to a large extent consisted in carrying out real raids on citizens of military age. Young people were mercilessly caught on the streets, in transport and, most remarkable, at university lectures. Right during classes, armed people of unknown departmental affiliation broke into the capital's universities and institutes and dragged students by force to the recruiting stations.
The sons of the Russian military who served in Georgia found themselves in a particularly difficult situation. They could not formally confirm their belonging to Russia in any way, since they had Soviet-style passports and military tickets. And they were listed at the place of their residence assigned to the military registration and enlistment offices. Therefore, in order to save their children from being drafted into the Georgian army and from being subsequently sent to the war in Abkhazia, the Russian military had to hide them on the territory of military units, change into Russian military uniforms, and then transport them to Russia in military convoys and on military transport aircraft.
Ethnic Georgians also evaded the draft in very significant numbers, especially in Tbilisi. As a rule, the main method of evasion was an urgent departure from Georgia, for the most part, again to Russia.
Meanwhile, Russian generals, desperately trying to "please" the Tbilisi authorities, continued to transfer arms to Georgia on a cyclopean scale. So, by April 4, 1993, over 100 tanks, more than 200 units of other various armored vehicles, over a hundred artillery pieces and mortars, 26 multiple launch rocket systems were officially transferred to the Georgian army. And that's not counting what was captured or just bought.
A particularly valuable gift for the Georgian "partners" were four Mi-24 attack helicopters, kindly donated by Russia shortly before the start of the Abkhazian war. Some time later, these helicopters were used by the Georgian side in Abkhazia, including, of course, for shelling the Russian troops stationed there. However, such a development of events did not puzzle Moscow at all, and the Russian Ministry of Defense decided that the weapons available in Transcaucasia are no longer enough and the region needs to be pumped with weapons directly from Russia. Therefore, Russian generals in huge quantities, under the guise of obsolete or faulty, “decommissioned” quite good-quality weapons and distilled them to the Transcaucasus.
But such continuous appeasement of the Georgian authorities by Moscow did not make the stay of the Russian military in Georgia any safer. Attacks on military units and military columns were carried out almost daily. Russian servicemen were regularly killed and taken hostage.
A case that took place in the Georgian capital in 1993 is noteworthy. In broad daylight in the center of Tbilisi, on Rustaveli Avenue, armed men seized and took away in an unknown direction two Russian border guard colonels. After that, the abductors contacted the headquarters of the Russian border troops and demanded an exchange.
Some time before, in the Krasnodar Territory, counterintelligence arrested four officers of the Information and Intelligence Service of Georgia, who were engaged in espionage in Russia. The kidnappers of the Russian border guards demanded the release of the Georgian spies who were in jail. The reaction of the Georgian law enforcement agencies to the incident was very interesting, they said that the abduction was carried out by some private individuals unknown to them. And if so, then the power structures of Georgia do not intend to take any part in the release of the hostages and let the Russian border guards deal with the kidnappers on their own.
By the way, neither the Georgian nor the Russian media reported on the detention of Georgian spies in Krasnodar, so it remained unclear how some "private persons" could even learn about this fact. The Russian border guards were forced to act independently and went to negotiate with the kidnappers at the place indicated by them, not far from the headquarters of the Transcaucasian border district. But there they were ambushed, since the abductors initially did not intend to conduct any negotiations, but simply shot the arriving Russian border guards from machine guns point-blank, after which they safely disappeared.
As a result of the attack, a Russian soldier was killed and an officer seriously wounded. This execution was intended to put pressure on the Russian authorities to immediately agree to all the conditions of the kidnappers. And, of course, Moscow implicitly complied with all their conditions. The Georgian spies were immediately released and left for Georgia.
Only after that did the kidnappers deign to release the Russian border guards. Of course, the kidnappers and murderers were never found. (As we can see, the manner of the Russian authorities to carry out extremely unprofitable exchanges of prisoners and hostages, which the whole country has been repeatedly convinced of recently, has a long tradition).
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