Chechen leader says Russia should launch military attacks against Ukraine, Georgia
Kyiv, December 24 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Chechnya President Ramzan Kadyrov told a British newspaper that "Georgia and Ukraine are afflictions of Russia that need to be eradicated."
"Georgia, South Ossetia, Ukraine, all this will go on and on. It's Russia's private affliction. Why should we always suffer if we can eradicate this for good? We are a great power, we have everything - an army, technology. We need to attack," Kadyrov said in an interview with London's "The Telegraph" published on Dec. 21.
Political scientist Valeriy Bebyk called attention to Kadyrov's statement at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Thursday. Bebyk, who heads the Ukrainian Association of Political Science, alleged that the statement was sanctioned by top Russian leaders. "A regional governor [in Russia] cannot…take such foreign political initiatives without Moscow's consent," he stated. "I think that this statement is very momentous, including in the context of our pre-election situation," Bebyk added.
Bebyk asserted that the "risk of involving Ukraine in all sorts of military conflicts will exist as long as any foreign military base is deployed in Ukraine. That's why the withdrawal of the military formations of the Russian Black Sea Fleet [from Ukraine] is necessary," he said. Bebyk's comments on the Black Sea Fleet support the position of Ukrainian president Viktor Yuschenko.
In his interview with The Telegraph, Kadyrov said that last year's attack by Georgia on the pro-Russian rebel region of South Ossetia was part of a Western plot to seize the whole Caucasus region. In connection with this, Kadyrov called on the Russian government to "work out a strategy" and that "it needs to attack."