MOSCOW, August 8. /TASS/. Georgia’s 2008 attack on South Ossetia and the conflict in Ukraine are elements of the same anti-Russian process, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev told TASS in an interview.
"Those are elements of one process, of one conspiracy aimed against Russia. By doing so, the West — primarily the United States and other Anglo-Saxon countries — are seeking to stir tensions. They are acting through our neighbors, in the immediate vicinity of the Russian borders," Medvedev said.
According to him, prior to Georgia’s 2008 attack on South Ossetia, the US government had been training Georgian troops and inciting the-then president of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, to attack South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers stationed there. At present, Washington is engaged "in the same provocative and, to put it bluntly, criminal "policy course in Ukraine" with a substantially more active support from the European Union, which has completely lost its independence by now."
"Their goal is the same — to destroy Russia. This is the root cause of the aggressive Russophobic geopolitical process initiated by the West," Medvedev said.
Like with Georgia before the 2008 events, the Americans deliberately fostered Kiev’s sense of impunity, pumped it with arms, and encouraged the killings of Donbass civilians," Medvedev added. "They still keep practicing this in Ukraine they don’t care a dime about," the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council concluded.
On the night of August 8, 2008, Georgia attacked South Ossetia. On the same day, Medvedev, the-then president of Russia, launched an operation to persuade Georgia to make peace. As a result, Georgia was defeated militarily, while Russia recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.