The former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, believes Ukraine could be on the verge of an “ethnic cleansing.”
Sadly, there is historic precedent for such a situation. All one needs do is look to events in Soviet Georgia, beginning with Russia’s invasion there in 2008.
In August 2008, Russia launched an invasion of Georgia that sent shock waves reverberating – first across the post-Soviet space, but then also into the rest of Europe and the world, as the magnitude of the invasion and its implications became clear.
Much as is suspected in the Ukraine, Russia created a campaign of misinformation to justify its invasion of Georgia, claiming it was necessary to prevent ethnic cleansing in the region by Georgian forces:
Russia mounted a sophisticated disinformation campaign, accusing Georgian forces of widespread human rights violation in South Ossetia, and gaining traction in the western media. While it is likely that Georgian forces indeed did hit a limited number of civilian targets, independent human rights organizations have been able to substantiate fewer than 150 deaths there, in stark contrast to Russia’s initial claim of 2,000 deaths and allegations of ethnic cleansing.
As further justification for the invasion of Georgia, Moscow cited earlier events in Kosovo, however actual events stands the Kosovo “precedent” on its head:
In Kosovo, as in Bosnia, western multilateral intervention sought to prevent ethnic cleansing from succeeding, rewarding the victims of ethnic cleansing. In Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Moscow explicitly rewarded and endorsed ethnic cleansing. This includes both the ethnic cleansing of over 240,000 persons, mainly ethnic Georgians, from Abkhazia in 1992- 93, and the ethnic cleansing of several tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians from South Ossetia as a direct result of Russia‘s invasion.
Ample evidence exists showing Russian forces “permitted or endorsed… systematic ethnic cleansing” in Georgia, lending assistance to the process instead of halting it:
While Russia claimed to intervene on the basis of humanitarian concerns, its forces subsequently permitted or endorsed the systematic ethnic cleansing of ethnic Georgians from South Ossetia. UN Satellite images available at [http://unosat.web.cern.ch/unosat/] provide graphic evidence of the systematic destruction of Georgian villages in the conflict zone, mainly after the end of major hostilities.
You can watch an interview with Saakashvili below and for more information on the Russian invasion of Georgia and its implications you can review CNN’s Source: Russia’s War in Georgia and the background chronology to it.
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