Russia Questions Aspects Of Georgia's National Military Doctrine
1 December 2005 -- Russia is protesting against some aspects of Georgia's national military strategy, which was made public yesterday.
In a statement issued late yesterday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin described as "absurd" Georgia's assertion that Russian peacekeepers deployed in the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia constitute a threat to Georgia's security.
Kamynin also refuted Tbilisi's claims that the two former Soviet military bases Russia is maintaining in Georgia are a destabilizing element. He defended the Russian bases as "a stabilizing factor" in Georgia's troubled recent history.
Kamynin said the accusations Georgian officials have been leveling against Russia's peacekeepers and bases "serve to justify their political and economic failures, as well as the ever-increasing purchases of weapons and military equipment."
(Russian Foreign Ministry)