With the help of Ukraine, the Georgian air defense was able to cause great damage to the Russian aviation, and now Russia does not bomb Ukraine, knowing that the country has a powerful air defense system.
It was announced by Mikhail Saakashvili, the governor of the Odessa region, at a press conference on the eighth anniversary of the war in South Ossetia.
‘Back in 2006, Putin threatened me with a war, and in 2006 he gave the order to prepare for a war. Naturally, when they were preparing, we were preparing too. And but for the help of Ukraine, the Georgian statehood would not have stood then,’ said Saakashvili.
According to Saakashvili, Putin did not only aim at seizing South Ossetia. He allegedly wanted to overthrow the government in Tbilisi and seize the whole of Georgia.
‘He has turned out to be unable to solve his strategic objectives in Ukraine, such as make a corridor to the Crimea, capture all of Donbass and take control over Kiev, like he was unable to solve its main strategic objectives in Georgia in 2008. Why? Firstly, because of the heroic resistance of not only the Georgian army, but also of the entire Georgian people. The war was clearly not a five-day one, it lasted for many weeks, more than half of Georgia's territory was occupied by the Russian troops. In that situation, we were able to make the government apparatus and the financial system function fully,’ confided the ex-president of Georgia.
In addition, Saakashvili claims that the US ambassador told him about terrible plans of the Russian Minister Sergey Lavrov on the destruction of ‘the whole of Georgia’.
‘When Russia invaded Georgia, on the second day, the American ambassador came to me and said that they had asked Lavrov about their purpose, and he had said, ‘The complete destruction of Georgia’. They wanted to destroy the Georgian statehood and even did not hide it,’ he said.
Among the reasons why the Russian had not managed to carry out their evil plans, Saakashvili called the ‘help of Ukraine’ that had borrowed the Georgians their air defense.
‘Another reason why we survived was the help of Ukraine. And I want to thank Ukraine. In Ukraine, we trained their military experts, Ukraine gave us the air defense which was absolutely critical in the early days of the invasion, because they were not able to get the crucial advantage in the early days. Ukraine gave us the "Buk" and "Osa" systems, and some ammo for each of them. Owing to these systems, we shot down 12 Russian bombers, including Tu-22 M-3 which had never been shot down before. I say this so that you could understand the role played by Ukraine. And one of the reasons why today the Russian aircraft do not bomb Ukraine is the Georgia lesson. They know that the Ukrainian air defense is able to shoot them down and Ukraine has enough ammo for it,’ he said.
P.S. From comments:
The former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the mediator in that conflict, said in an interview that he had forced Saakashvili to sign an agreement in Tbilisi. He explained to him that there was no choice, and either he surrendered or Russian tanks would be in Tbilisi an hour later.
Victor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian President at that time, said, ’At least we know what the West's solidarity looks like and what support we can count on’.
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