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Russian armed forced saved peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from extermination

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev: I believe our Armed Forces provided conditions for peaceful development of South Ossetia and Abkhazia

Photo ITAR-TASS/ Vladimir Mukagov

Photo ITAR-TASS/ Vladimir Mukagov

SOCHI, August 8 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev believes that Russia and \Russian Armed Forces saved the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from extermination in August 2008.

“I believe that our Armed Forces, our whole country, showed generosity, firmness at this moment and protected the life of our people, actually saved people from destruction and provided conditions for a peaceful way of development for South Ossetia and Abkhazia,” he said at a meeting with the activists of the United Russia party on Thursday.

“These were real hard times and difficult decisions,” the prime minister added. “I reiterate that I believe they were the only possible decisions in this situation and we suffered through them,” he noted.

Speaking on future relations, the prime minister added that he “would like that our future will be peaceful that we will be communicating well with all peoples, who live in the Caucasus, and with Georgia, certainly, because we have a long-standing tradition of good relations, and they cannot be spoiled by some reckless act, which was taken at that period of time by well-known Georgian leaders.”

Medvedev believes that “the peoples take each other in a good manner all the same and this is a pledge of future peaceful development.”

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