Independent: Russia Moves Border into Georgia

British newspaper the Independent wrote about the recent case of moving occupation line with breakaway South Ossetia further into Georgian territory by the Russian Federation.

The newspaper article reads that Kremlin troops reportedly moved a border sign hundreds of yards further into occupied territory in South Ossetia last week, ahead of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at the G20 summit. 

According to the Independent, Kurt Volker, a former US representative to NATO called on the West to stand up to Moscow.

“Russia is in a much weaker position but it has managed to play a weak hand very aggressively – because it has counted on the fact we are not going to respond in any assertive way,” he told BBC Radio 4. 

The article says that after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, South Ossetia, a small sliver of land to the northeast of Georgia, broke away from the country in a war. In August 2008, Russia sent in troops, saying it was protecting civilians in South Ossetia from attack by Georgian forces.

The newspaper reads that Russia recognized South Ossetia as an independent state and in the whole only a handful of other states recognized it as a state.

“Russia's critics say the war in South Ossetia was a dress rehearsal by Russia for its annexation in 2014 of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, and its support for separatist fighters in the eastern Ukrainian Donbass region,” the article reads.

By Thea Morrison