All news

Russian PM says before attacking Tskhinval, Saakashvili was convinced US would support him

Dmitry Medvedev mentioned Moscow’s readiness to "help slowly and carefully reunify the country so as to preserve it within the national borders as a federation, confederation or in any other form"

MOSCOW, August 7. /TASS/. Before attacking South Ossetia, the then President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili expected the United States to support him "in any situation," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with Kommersant.

"I think that by that time (by the beginning of the war - TASS) he’d had full-scale consultations with his patrons, primarily the United States," he said, mentioning the then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice among those who had contacts with the Georgian President at that time. "Everyone of importance had been to Tbilisi, which, I think, convinced Saakashvili that the Americans would support him in any situation," PM said.

According to Medvedev, he had a rather good relationship with Saakashvili at the beginning. "It looked quite good at the beginning, and during our first meeting, soon after I took office as the President of Russia, he (Saakashvili) said he would like to restore relations and hoped to get along. In short, he said many kind words. I listened to him and replied: If you want to improve relations, let’s do it. We want to have normal and friendly relations with our neighbour, Georgia, and we are ready for this," he elaborated.

PM also mentioned Moscow’s readiness to "help slowly and carefully reunify the country so as to preserve it within the national borders as a federation, confederation or in any other form." "It could be a choice of all ethnic groups living in Georgia at that time, including Georgians, Abkhazians and Ossetians," Medvedev said.

"He said he was ready to proceed… and then he vanished. Before that, we had coordinated some meetings and contacts, and then he completely vanished in early July 2008, which I remember clearly. I did not make too much of this, but today I think that it was a deliberate act," he explained.

According to PM, Saakashvili "hoped that the new leader of Russia would take a different stand on relations with his government and him personally." "That is, that I would not interfere in whatever happened in Georgia, and that I would not react in any way to actions undertaken against Russian peacekeepers and, most importantly, Russian citizens in Abkhazia and South Ossetia," he emphasized.