‘The Cold War Is Long Over’

Our objective was simple: stop the killing and prevent it from recurring. These actions are entirely consistent with Article 51 of the U.N. Charter on the right of self-defense. The Russian side never targeted civilians or civil facilities. Our purpose was to protect all people in the region by disarming Georgian forces and demilitarizing the areas used to launch attacks against South Ossetia.

It is now widely known that Georgian forces around Gori continued to fire on South Ossetians and Russian units, even after Saakashvili signed a ceasefire. Operations ended on Aug. 12, but the situation continued to be extremely dangerous. To give but one example: the Georgian Army covered its retreat with booby traps and smart mines. We also received reports of looting, score-settling and harassment in the power vacuum left by fleeing Georgian authorities.

This, however, is not what Georgia wants the world to believe. Propaganda is a powerful weapon. Realizing that Operation Clear Field had failed, Georgian officials frantically assumed the role of the victim. They claimed Russian troops had leveled Gori and were moving on Tbilisi. Saakashvili declared he had personally seen Russian planes bomb a local market (the European ministers who accompanied him to Gori failed to notice the attack). Apartment blocks, civil infrastructure and a stadium had been destroyed by cluster bombs, Saakashvili said. None of this was true. This was a blatant attempt to cover up the fact that Georgia itself had been the aggressor.

What can one say about Saakashvili's repeated assertions that Tskhinvali was destroyed not by the Georgians but by the Russian forces after they had taken the city? George Orwell's Ministry of Truth could not have invented such a story. On Aug. 14, Russian troops began restoring order to Gori. Russian units helped reintroduce water and electricity supplies and facilitated the re-entry of Georgian police. They ensured that huge, unprotected arsenals of weaponry nearby presented no danger to the civilian population.

Those who long for the cold war may wish to compare Russia's defense of its peacekeepers and innocent civilians to Soviet aggression of the last century. But Czech President Vaclav Klaus put it well last week when he rejected the comparison to Czechoslovakia in 1968: "Czechoslovakia did not attack the Subcarpathian Rus; the invasion was not a reaction to our attack." The cold war is long over, the Soviet Union a receding memory. As the United States well knows, a nation must defend its people when they are attacked. No nation that respects itself can do less.

Lavrov is Russia’s foreign minister.

© 2008