Russian Troops Build New Road on South Ossetia Contact Line
TBILISI – Russian border guards have begun building a new road immediately adjacent to the contact line separating Georgia’s breakaway region South Ossetia from government control, according to reports from Georgian soldiers patrolling the area.
Locals in nearby villages told local TV company Rustavi 2 that the road runs through pasture land that has been off-limits to local shepherds for several years due to the illegal presence of Russian soldiers on the sites.
Georgia’s State Security Service released a statement Sunday saying the current construction work has yet to cross into government-controlled territory, but that Russia’s military engineers are operating dangerously close to the internationally agreed contact line.
Georgia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Davit Zalkaliani said Tbilisi has informed several international missions about the issue and the government plans to raise the matter on 15 March at a meeting held in a village near the contact line.
“It is important for us to inform the international community and consolidate our position in order to avoid an escalation,” Zalkaniani said.
Operating on instructions from their handlers in the separatist capital Tskhinvali, Russian troops in February installed a new barbed wire fence that stretched into the village of Jariasheni, a tiny hamlet located in Georgia’s Gori district.
The move effectively advanced the occupation line by 35 meters, cutting into the village boundaries and separating the locals from their agricultural plots.
Russian soldiers also barred local villagers from cultivating any new or existing plots located close to the wire-fence they installed, though they are within Georgian controlled territory.
Georgian government forces have fought three wars against Russian-backed separatist forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia between 1991-2008. The wars left thousands dead and led to the ethnic cleansing of a quarter of a million ethnic Georgians.
South Ossetia alongside with another breakaway Abkhazia, were recognized as independent states by Moscow following the 2008 war.
International law and the United Nations continue to state that the regions remain parts of Georgia.
Edited by Nicholas Waller