O 121229Z AUG 08
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 9431
INFO EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 002360 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/12/2018 
TAGS: PREL PGOV MARR RS GE
 
SUBJECT: TFGG01: RUSSIA-GEORGIA: ANTI-US BACKLASH; NEW 
STATUS QUO? 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Eric Rubin: 1.4 (b, d). 
 
¶1.  (C)  Summary:  Putin's harshly critical August 11 remarks 
about U.S. interference and bias in the Russian-Georgian 
conflict have set the tone for public and private accusations 
of U.S. encouragement or stage-managing of Saakashvili's 
decision to attempt to take Tskhinvali by force.  The absence 
of public criticism of Saakashvili or condemnation of the 
killings in South Ossetia has been portrayed as either 
Western cynicism or complicity.  Among well-connected Kremlin 
analysts and more moderate observers, we are hearing a 
consensus that a status quo ante does not exist -- either for 
Georgia and the separatist conflicts, or for Russia in its 
relations with the U.S. and Europe.  While our contacts 
dispute any occupation scenario for Tbilisi, the Kosovo model 
for Abkhazia and South Ossetia -- independence for one, 
absorption into Russia for the other -- is taken as a given. 
There is broad support for Russia's return as a preeminent 
neighborhood power, even as there is little clarity on its 
construct.  End Summary 
 
Putin Sets the Angry Tone 
------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C)  Putin's angry August 11 remarks casting blame on the 
U.S. for intensifying the Georgian-Russian conflict have had 
immediate resonance.  With Putin charging that the U.S. 
transport of Georgian troops back from Iraq "practically to 
the conflict zone" constituted cynical interference, and his 
sarcastic jibe at the ability "of several of our partners" to 
"skillfully categorize the aggressor as a victim of 
aggression and lay responsibility for the consequences on the 
victims themselves," the public and private assertions of 
American stage-managing of the conflict have grown. 
 
¶3.  (C)  While FM Lavrov's August 12 press statements were 
slightly more moderate and focused on U.S. apparent inability 
to control its client, there is pervasive commentary that 
America orchestrated the hostilities.  Anti-American pitbull 
Mikhail Leontyev was featured on the August 11 nightly news 
(whose audience has grown by a factor of three during the 
conflict) directly charging that Saakashvili had acted on 
Washington orders, with the Secretary giving the Georgian 
President the green light during her last visit to Tbilisi. 
Noting that Georgian defense coffers had grown 31-fold under 
the U.S. umbrella, Leontyev said the maintenance, arming, and 
training of the GOG forces was an American project.  In his 
telling, Saakashvili had been urged to take on the more 
vulnerable South Ossetians, to humiliate the Russians and 
open the door to a forceful resolution of Abkhazia. 
(Kremlin-friendly youth groups heckled us behind police 
barriers as we visited the Georgian Charge, yelling through 
the megaphone that the Embassy had arrived to present the 
Georgians with their marching orders on their next course of 
action.) 
 
Kremlin Talking Points on U.S. Culpability 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (C)  Reliable conduits of Kremlin/White House attitudes 
underscore this message.  In a heated exchange with us on 
August 12, Ruling party Duma Deputy Sergey Markov charged 
that there should be an investigation into how U.S. monies, 
weapons, and training were actually used in Georgia. "We 
heard for four years that U.S.-trained Georgian soldiers 
would not be used to murder South Ossetians," Markov 
commented, arguing that the failure of the U.S. to forcefully 
condemn Saakashvili's military actions in Tskhinvali had 
deeply disillusioned the Russian elite.  Markov, who prides 
himself on conveying the Kremlin party line, stressed that 
"no one here sees Saakashvili acting in an individual 
capacity."  Having pleaded with Washington to halt the arming 
of the GOG, Russians now held the U.S. responsible for the 
military aftermath. Markov, echoing far more moderate foreign 
policy observers, justified Russian attacks on Georgian 
infrastructure and military targets, noting the U.S. bombing 
of bridges in Belgrade when attempting to stop carnage in 
Kosovo.  "Who are you to complain?"  In a less charged 
language, Director of the Kremlin-funded Center for Effective 
Politics Gleb Pavlovskiy stressed to us that the "military 
improvisation" of Saakashvili was a "legitimate conversation 
topic" that had begged a critical U.S. reaction.  "We didn't 
see one." 
 
No Way Back 
----------- 
 
¶5.  (C)  Our contacts don't believe that Russia is headed for 
a military takeover of Tbilisi, but are frank in their 
assessment of a fundamentally different and "irreversible" 
strategic environment.  The nuanced variant of this new 
Russian bottom line was spelled out to us by Carnegie 
Center's Dmitriy Simes.  According to Simes, Russian 
strategic objectives, which continue to evolve, include: 
 
-- Ensuring that Georgia cannot challenge Abkhazia or South 
Ossetia militarily, through a legally binding no first use of 
force agreement that recognizes both conflict territories as 
co-equals to the agreement; 
 
-- Consolidating Abkhazia as a de facto state and recognizing 
South Ossetia's independence, in order to permit its gradual 
merger with North Ossetia, with a security buffer around both; 
 
-- Impressing upon the Georgian people that Saakashvili's 
military adventure was "extremely detrimental" to Georgian 
national interests and "helping them to decide" who is best 
to lead their country; and 
 
-- Working to create a new geo-political environment in the 
Caucasus with Russia as the new leading power, as well as 
preeminent power in the former Soviet Union.  The message 
that is being sent to Ukraine, he stressed, is "if trod upon, 
Russia will bite back hard."  Russia, he underscored, will no 
longer let others tell it what Russian strategic interests 
are. 
 
-- Using all avenues to pressure Saakashvili and encourage 
the disintegration of his political base, including calls for 
a Hague-style "war crimes" tribunal. 
 
¶6.  (C)  Both Pavlovskiy and Carnegie Center's Dmitriy Trenin 
emphasized that Russia had not gone as far as it had 
militarily only to be confronted with a status quo ante, in 
which Saakashvili could again challenge Russian core 
interests.  If the frozen conflicts and NATO membership had 
been the key challenges to Russia's policy towards the 
Caucasus, Trenin maintained that Russian decision makers were 
intent on using Saakashvili's miscalculation to fundamentally 
change ground realities.  This was the lesson that Putin 
learned during the war in Chechnya, Trenin explained, when 
powerful voices (Primakov, Luzhkov, and Chernomyrdin) urged 
him to declare victory halfway.  Putin persisted and won, and 
was applying this model again.  Trenin, Pavlovskiy, and 
Markov separately agreed that there was no daylight in 
Russian policy between Putin and Medvedev. 
 
¶7.  (C)  When asked whether Russia had underestimated the 
international reaction to its expansive military operation, 
our contacts reinforce the fundamental policy disconnect 
between Russia and the West over culpability.  Anger over the 
West's failure to condemn the Tskhinvali attacks -- either 
bilaterally or through the Security Council -- shapes the 
Russian decision making environment, and continues to 
represent a strong current in Russian television broadcasts, 
which portray Western outrage over Gori as cynical. 
Parallels to Belgrade/Kosovo are more prevalent, with 
moderate Russian analysts acknowledging the civilian Georgian 
casualties, but ascribing it to the "collateral damage" 
inherent in any war, and conservatives dismissing any 
comparisons between the "genocide" in Tskhinvali and what 
later ensued. 
 
¶8.  (C)  Taking note of our strong condemnation of Russian 
actions, Trenin acknowledged that there could be no status 
quo ante in relations between Russia, the U.S. and Europe. 
The strategic environment, he argued, was "profoundly 
different."  Russia, he predicted, was more ready for this 
changed playing field than its U.S. and European 
counterparts.  Pavlovskiy also signaled a "fundamental" 
change in the strategic situation in the Black Sea and 
Caucasus, one that Russian leaders had yet to fully 
understand.  Noting concern throughout the Caucasus over the 
events that had transpired, Pavlovskiy said Russia would move 
to prevent any "vacuum" from emerging that would further 
destabilize the region. 
 
Saakashvili Who? 
---------------- 
 
¶9.  (C)  As Lavrov said publicly, in his remarks with FM 
Kouchner and Stubb, Russia will no longer engage with 
Saakashvili, and quite a few Russian contacts refer to U.S. 
policy towards Hamas as a point of comparison for the GOR 
decision to ignore the democratically elected leader of 
Georgia. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶10.  (C)  To state the obvious, Russian views -- both 
official and public -- are formed in an entirely different 
policy context and understanding of "original sin" when 
analyzing the outbreak of the war.  What is brought home from 
our conversations with policy analysts of widely divergent 
political views is the consensus that Russia has successfully 
transformed strategic realities in its neighborhood.  Our 
continued sense, despite the international uproar over 
Russian actions, is that most Russians are proud of Russia's 
reemergence and believe it both overdue and inevitable. 
RUBIN 
 
 
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