Ukrainian events will have minimum effect on Russian-Georgian relations, experts say

Events in Ukraine have little impact on relations between Russia and Georgia, which remain quite complicated, said the experts who participated in the roundtable on the topic "Russian-Georgian Relations in Context of Ukrainian Crisis". Georgy Kanashvili, the executive director of the centre of cultural relations "Caucasian House", has noted that at the background of the crisis in Ukraine, pro-Russian organizations have grown active in Georgia.

The roundtable was held on March 28 in the Moscow Carnegie Centre within the programme "Religion, Society and Security".

In the opinion of Alexander Skakov, an expert from the Group of the Centre for Studying Central Asia and Caucasus of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), the Crimean events are associated with the developments in Georgia.

He added that the position that there are three different conflicts: Russian-Georgian, Abkhazian-Georgian and Georgian-South Ossetian ones, is absolutely correct.

The parallels between the situations in the Crimea and the Caucasus "are raised by people willing to deliberately insert a wedge between Russia and the West," said Skakov.

As for the dialogue between Russia and Georgia on Abkhazia and South Ossetia, "it has very little future," the expert said. However, he noted that Georgia's accession to NATO is unacceptable for Russia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.