“Georgia has become visibly active recently,” Nikolai Simakov, deputy head of Interior Ministry’s unit in North Caucasus federal district, said in an interview with Russian newspaper, Vremya Novostei, when asked about foreign aid to militants operating in the North Caucasus.
“We have information that special camps are set on the territory of this country for training of fighters. Persons from the Caucasus republics, usually criminals and as well as those who are at large in European states are gathered there, trained and sent to us via neighboring countries,” he said in the newspaper interview, published on September 6. Read More..
“A clash took place recently when a group tried to cross into Russia from Azerbaijan; an Azerbaijani border guard died, one fighter was killed and two others detained. It was revealed during the interrogation, that they were recruited by extremist organizations and sent to Georgia for training with a goal to then operate on the Russian territory,” Simakov said.
When last month the U.S. Department of State released an annual country report on terrorism, saying that “Russia’s claims of Georgian support for Chechen terrorist and harboring of such individuals in the Pankisi gorge were unsubstantiated”, the Russian Foreign Ministry slammed the report’s Georgia section as biased.
"The report portrays Georgia as a truly exemplary fighter against terrorism. Herewith it ignores available information that Georgia is playing a double game in respect of terrorist underground in the North Caucasus," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on August 13.
Now, the state-run Russian news agency RIA is quoting Russia's deputy interior minister, Arkady Yedelev, as saying these militants are being trained at military bases in Georgia.
He is said to have made the comment in Vladikavkaz, a town in the Russian Caucasus. Yedelev didn't directly accuse the Georgian government of complicity, and did not identify the militants' instructors.
Such hysterical 'news' are being spread periodically by corrupt Russian high officials. By spreading such information, they try to distract the attention of the Russian public from Russia's internal problems. Such as the devastation of the country by fires and the failure of the authorities to combat these fires effectively, economic decline and financial catastrophe. By accusing Georgia of hosting terrorists, Russia in fact recognizes that it has no control over the North Caucasus and the whole country.
