ICG, 22 Jun 09: Georgia-Russia: Still Insecure and Dangerous
....The Georgia-Russia war ended with ceasefire agreements that ordered an end to military action, a pullback to pre-war positions and access for humanitarian and monitoring missions to conflict areas, but the security situation on the ground remains tense. Russia has not complied with the main points of the truce, and the sides have not engaged in meaningful negotiations to stabilise the situation. These factors create a potentially explosive situation in which even small incidents could spark a new conflict. Russia’s veto on 15 June in the Security Council of the extension of the sixteen-year-old UN military observer mission in Georgia, combined with its apparent determination also to force out the OSCE mission at the end of the month is an unfortunate, potentially grave development that could further destabilise the situation and lead to a new outbreak of full-blown hostilities....
CSIS, 19 Jun 09: Georgia: Why We Should Be Watching
Buried on page A8 of the June 16 Washington Post was a short article entitled “Russia Vetoes Georgia Monitors.” The article briefly outlined Russia’s veto of an extension of the 15-year-old mission of United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), which had been monitoring the situation in the breakaway region of Abkhazia. Coming close on the heels of Russia’s rejection of an extension of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) observer mission in Georgia’s other breakaway region of South Ossetia, Russia’s veto of UNOMIG’s presence in Georgia must be seen for what it is: an attempt to legitimize its recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but more ominously, an attempt to eject all foreign presence—and therefore foreign eyes—from Georgia’s conflict regions. True, there is still a European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia, but it has been denied access to the conflict regions and must be content with monitoring the Georgian side of the conflict line. It would be a relatively simple matter for Russia to manufacture enough instability along the conflict line to chase the EUMM back to Tbilisi. This would leave the borders of the contested zones completely unobserved by members of the international community, making it all too simple for Russia to manufacture a “provocation by the Georgian side” to which it is “compelled” to respond, the same way it was “compelled” to “force Georgia to peace” last August. A resumption of Russia’s war in Georgia, which would be a disaster for the United States and Europe, is not out of the question.....