Georgia, not wanting to recognize the independence of the Republic of South Ossetia, for the first time after 2008, risked direct provocations to erode the state border, said Oleg Shiran, head of the South Ossetian State Security Committee, at a press conference in Tskhinval.
He believes that the attempts and desire of the Georgian power elite to switch the attention of the opposition and the population from pressing internal problems, such as unemployment and falling living standards, to a mythical external threat served as an additional motive. In his opinion, the KGB of South Ossetia was in a difficult situation, solving the border crisis issue - one wrong step could lead to an armed confrontation. “But we managed to find an asymmetric response to the threat. The South Ossetian border guards, as part of a special operation developed by the KGB and approved by the President, restored part of the territory of South Ossetia and ensured the safety of citizens of the Republic living in the area. They took a dominant position, and thereby fettered the actions of the Georgian side, neutralized plans to create a similar infrastructure on other sections of the state border,” said Shiran.
According to the head of the KGB, President Anatoly Bibilov has repeatedly stated that the solution to this issue lies exclusively in the plane of political and diplomatic efforts. “However, the tactical victory of our border guards provided South Ossetian diplomats with the necessary argument in discussing the ways out of the crisis. And we wish our diplomats success in the negotiation processes,” the head of the KGB added.
