Russian paper reports Georgian “secret plan” for regaining South Ossetia

Moskovskiy Komsomolets, Moscow
28 Aug 04

A Russian newspaper has said it has obtained a copy of a “secret plan”
by which Georgia will use military force to restore its control over
the breakaway region of South Ossetia. In an article published on 28
August, Moskovskiy Komsomolets said the plan was contained in a
document which was allegedly stolen from the former chief of the
Georgian General Staff, Givi Iukuridze. The paper said the plan
envisages a “military-humanitarian” operation to seize control of
South Ossetia, to be accompanied by the sealing off of Russian
military bases on Georgian territory, which it said would pose a
direct challenge to Russia. The following is excerpted from the
article:

“You want total war,” Dr Goebbels, Reichsminister for propaganda,
shouted, and in response the German people unanimously bayed: “Yes!!!”
Both old men and youngsters marched in orderly columns to sign up for
the Wehrmacht. A similar cry was given out recently by Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili: “It is essential that any enemy that
ventures aggression against the country know that, aside from the
regular army, he will be opposed by thousands of reservists and that
he will encounter a well-organized army of five million!!!” In
addition to the above-mentioned doctor, the leader of the Georgian
revolution has decided, it would seem, to follow the example of
Kerenskiy [provisional government leader in 1917], who is famous for
having formed a women’s battalion, “President Misha” [Saakashvili] has
decided to draft ladies into his invincible host.

So Georgia continues to prepare for war. With the aid of a “black
tights battalion” or without, Saakashvili continues to hope to subdue
South Ossetia by force. Secret documents in the possession of
Moskovskiy Komsomolets testify to this. Moskovskiy Komsomolets has
learned of a secret plan for a Georgian military operation in South
Ossetia. The “pacification of the unruly autonomy” could begin within
the next few days.

On 25 August Zurab Zhvania, prime minister of Georgia, announced that
Maj-Gen Givi Iukuridze had been removed from the post of chief of the
Georgian armed forces General Staff. It is likely that the former CGS
will be appointed military attache to Russia.

Iukuridze is 48 years old, a professional military officer. He was
appointed chief of the Georgian armed forces General Staff this
February. He had until recently been considered the favourite of the
president of Georgia. He often opposed the “hawks”, who have since
this spring been insistently pushing the new leadership of Georgia
into a military solution to the conflict with South Ossetia and
Abkhazia. It was mainly on account of this that he began to lose the
president’s favour. In addition, he had entered into a conflict on a
number of fundamental issues of military organizational development
with Interior Minister Irakli Okruashvili, who is becoming
increasingly influential – on questions of a resolution of the problem
of “pacification of the rebel autonomies” included.

Military circles and the political beau monde of Georgia had been
talking about the imminent removal of Iukuridze from the post of CGS
for several weeks, but the formal ground for the dismissal, evidently,
was his recent loss of a folder of secret documents of particular
importance. The official inquiry conducted in this connection has not
come across the trail of the thieves.

The Ministry of Defence and the Georgian General Staff are continuing
to say all but openly here that the documents could have been stolen
only by an insider with an interest in Iukuridze’s speediest
removal. The organizers of the theft are being called representatives
of some “third force”, which is not only inciting tension in the
Georgian-Ossetian conflict area but is also reshuffling the leadership
of the force entities after its own fashion, moving into the key posts
people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the closest
associates of the minister of internal affairs.

The secret data contained in the documents from the stolen folder and
also certain original documents and their copies have recently begun
to surface both in Georgia itself and abroad.

A piece of tracing paper taken from a map containing the version of a
plan of a military operation to capture Tskhinvali and restore
Georgia’s sovereignty over South Ossetia was recently forwarded to
Moscow from Tbilisi. This tracing paper was conveyed to a
representative of the Georgian diaspora in the Russian capital and
came via him into the possession of Moskovskiy Komsomolets. It is
significant that the “well-wishers” that had sent the tracing paper to
Moscow had prudently, albeit in slapdash fashion, translated the
inscriptions and notations into Russian, thereby facilitating the work
of the journalists and military specialists that do not know
Georgian. We thank them for this.

The newspaper’s military experts, superimposing the tracing paper on
the map and making use of contradictory information concerning
Tbilisi’s military plans that had been published earlier, “read” the
overall concept of the military campaign with a certain degree of
reliability.

It ensues from the plan that it is contemplated to return South
Ossetia to Georgian jurisdiction in the form of a
military-humanitarian operation. This solution, as intended by the
Georgian military, is designed to conceal from the public Tbilisi’s
main emphasis on the military component of the plan and is geared
mainly to use for propaganda purposes.

The concept of the operation appears, as a whole, as follows:

First, to secure with the forces of units of the army’s special forces
and the police with the enlistment of the Georgian volunteer defence
force control of the main transport directions (establish a transport
blockade), concentrating the main efforts on taking full control of
the Roki, Mamison and Krestov passes. Second, in the guise of
transport convoys carrying humanitarian goods for the local citizenry,
Ossetian included, to activate units of the people’s volunteer defence
force, increase their arms and deliver the requisite military
equipment.

Depending on how the situation develops, it is contemplated at the
second stage of the operation to redeploy, by air included, the Davit
and Betta force components and the 16th Mountain-Rifle Brigade from
their staging areas to seal off centres of resistance of units of the
armed forces of the Republic of South Ossetia in the areas of the
localities of Tsinagari, Sunisi and Java.

It is planned that the Koba assault force will be moved out from the
staging area in three directions to seal off the capital of South
Ossetia, depriving units of the armed forces of South Ossetia of the
possibility of manoeuvring forces and assets. The right flank of the
Betta force will be secured by the American adviser-trained 11th
Separate Mechanized Brigade of the armed forces of Georgia. A
calculation based on US economic and military-political support in the
resolution of this problem may be traced, on the whole.

The paper’s military experts believe that all this will be accompanied
also by the simultaneous sealing off of the Russian military bases on
Georgian territory with a view to preventing units of Russian troops
moving out from their permanent basing locations, and this is a direct
challenge to Russia.

Whether Georgia will go ahead with implementing the plan in the form
in which it is contained in the “Iukuridze folder”, the future will
tell. There has already been information to the effect that the
Georgian armed forces General Staff is urgently reworking it for a
report for final approval by President Saakashvili no later than 28
August. Any concealment of war as a military-humanitarian operation is
being jettisoned here. [Passage omitted]

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress