Kidnap and torture haunt region handed over to appease Russia
ON A hillside above the northern Georgian village of Kirbali stands an Orthodox chapel. Its doors were sealed in 2008, when separatists seized control of the breakaway region of South Ossetia with the help of the Russian army and established an unmarked line of occupation that split the church from the village.
On Nov 6, Tamaz Ginturi, 58, approached the church with fellow villager Levan Dotiashvili, 33. The South Ossetian border guard, which includes Russian FSB officers, lay in wait and shot him dead. Mr Dotiashvili was abducted for interrogation. He was released three days later.
Three months on, the separatist government has not apprehended anyone in connection with Mr Ginturi’s killing. “We do not have any hope there will be justice,” Givi Ginturi, his cousin, told The Telegraph. The family believe the “brave, traditional, patriotic” veteran was targeted specifically because he fought against the 2008 invasion.
Since then, the Georgian security service estimates that more than 1,500 Georgians have been detained by border guards for what are termed “illegal crossings”. A post-mortem examination conducted on one, Archil Tatunashvili, found he suffered 100 separate torture wounds during an interrogation in February 2018 which ended in his death. South Ossetia maintains he died falling down a flight of stairs in a failed escape attempt.
As the West grows increasingly hesitant about how long it can support Ukraine’s defence, Georgia stands as an example of what happens when the world makes peace with a Russian occupation. For the menace of abduction is merely one way among many in which the shadow of the Russian bear has loomed over Georgia in the decade and a half since 2008, which also saw separatists in the western province of Abkhazia seize control alongside the Russian army.
In Abkhazia, Russia is building a naval base for its Black Sea Fleet at Ochamchire, a deep-water port just 20 miles from Georgian-controlled land. Its primary purpose is to get the fleet out of the range of Ukrainian missiles and sea drones which have harassed it mercilessly closer to the frontline.
In South Ossetia, there is also a major Russian army base at Tshkinvali, the regional capital that is just 90 minutes drive from Tbilisi. Two miles to its south is the Georgian-held village of Ergneti, which was once an outlying settlement of Tskhinvali but is now separated from it by checkpoints and a border along the Liakvhi, a river which skirts its north-western edge.
Ergneti’s residents live in fear of another Russian invasion. The number of families in the village has fallen from 150 before the war to just 30 amid a dearth of job opportunities. Lavan and Maia Bidzinashvili, both 45, have sent their sons Luka, 21, and Dito, 17, to Gori, the largest nearby city, for a chance at building a better life. “It is a hard life here,” Mr Bidzinashvili explained. “We are very afraid of the Russians. They could invade at any moment.”
Yet this entrenched Russian military presence on what remains internationally recognised as Georgian land has been met with a muted response from its government.
Since winning power from the pro-west United National Movement in 2012, the ruling Georgian Dream party has overseen a pivot towards Moscow. The opposition says this has been orchestrated by Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgian Dream’s billionaire founder who it also alleges is a Russian agent, which he denies.
What is undisputed is that Georgia has offered little support to Ukraine, formerly its close ally, in its defence against Vladimir Putin’s invasion. One of the most peculiar examples of growing pro-russian sentiment in Georgia is a renaissance in the cult of Joseph Stalin. Giorgi Kandelaki, director of the Sovlab think tank which researches Georgia’s Soviet history, said 12 new statues of the infamous dictator have been erected in a decade.
Georgia offers an example of the risks of ceding occupied territory in exchange for peace. Ukraine and the West face a similar choice. Giorgi Vashadze, leader of the New Georgia opposition party, warns that Ukraine should remember that Russia has never withdrawn its troops from Abkhazia and South Ossetia despite promising to as part of a mediated ceasefire which ended the war in 2008.
“Agreement with Russia is worth nothing,” he said. “Russians will consider the deal as the weakness of the West and there will be another wave of aggression in five or 10 years. Either we stop Russia right now, or the next will be Poland, the Baltic States.”
A decade and a half on from the 2008 invasion, it is clear that peace with Russia has not ended Georgia’s war. The separatists remain firmly in place, abducting and killing civilians.
In Kirbali, Amirar Papitashvili, 93, remembers when villagers could visit the Orthodox chapel on the hillside when they pleased. “The war has changed a lot,” he said.