Experts on Russian leaders’ statements about Georgia

South Ossetian expert Soslan Kokoyev thinks that President Medvedev's line on Saakashvili’s policy is consistent: “He underlined that he won’t contact Saakashvili, but believes that eventually bilateral relations will improve.”

At the same time, Georgian expert Kakha Gouglashvili thinks that the Russian attitude to Georgia is flexible as never before. He says that Russian leaders are now less firm and try to be more careful while speaking about Georgia’s territorial integrity. All the current tension is probably caused by US recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as occupied territories. So it’s a matter of US-Russian relations rather than Russian-Georgian ones, the expert believes.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently said that the South Ossetia people are those who should decide whether South Ossetia will enter the Russian Federation. Political analyst Alexey Vlasov comments on the statement: “After this statement, a lot of people claimed that there are certain plans to unite Russia and South Ossetia. In fact, Putin was just answering a question. He was asked whether Belarus and South Ossetia could join Russia and answered that it depends only on the will of the people. All further speculations were mostly baseless.”

Radio Svoboda