Turning West for help

Two years have passed since the brief war between Georgia and Russia. Moscow “forced Tbilisi to accept peace” and established full control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The latter soon began to take rather an independent stand. Much to the surprise of some politicians in Russia’s capital, Sukhumi began (as a sign of “gratitude” for the gift of independence?) to limit the involvement of Russian capital in the purchase of land and real estate on the Black Sea coast. Moreover, preference is being given to the Abkhazian diaspora, mostly in Turkey. Abkhazia is less and less asking Moscow for money and is behaving like a sovereign country. Be careful what you wish for.

South Ossetia is a very different case. This was in fact clear from the very outset, and the Kremlin had been warned about this well before the conflict with Georgia entered an acute phase. By the efforts of President Eduard Kokoity’s entourage, South Ossetia has become a black hole in the Russian budget. Although hostilities ceased two years ago, the republic and its capital Tskhinvali are recovering extremely slowly. Enormous money has been spent. According to the report “South Ossetia: The Burden of Recognition” by the International Crisis Group (ICG), an international non-governmental expert center, Russia has allocated 840 million dollars to South Ossetia since the conflict broke out in August 2008. As it follows from this document, the republic’s population is 30,000, almost three times less than in 1991. If figures in the report are anything to go by, there has been 28,000 dollars of Russian aid for every resident. This is a considerable and even fantastic, by North Caucasus standards, amount.

Yet Konstantin Chuychenko, chief of the Russian Presidential Administration’s Auditing Directorate, and First Vice-Premier Igor Shuvalov, recently carried out a regular inspection and remained very dissatisfied. About 385 civic facilities and Tskhinvali’s Moskovsky neighborhood are either unfinished, or do not function, or remain empty. They are not linked to communication lines. The new buildings have no electricity, water and gas supply. A large part of the private residential sector is still in ruins, and no one can say when residents will move to new houses.

The funds have been either wasted or embezzled. Tskhinvali demands more money from Moscow to continue work. The Russian capital seems to be sick and tired of this. In any case, Shuvalov made it clear there will be no new installments this year.

Addressing a meeting of the South Ossetian Presidential Administration, he described the buildings being put up as “golden.” Contract estimates have been inflated, and those who try “to channel federal funds into illegal schemes” were threatened with strict prosecution. According to the first vice-premier, there was a plan to allocate 10 billion rubles in 2011 to all 300 of Russia’s company towns, and 9.3 billion to South Ossetia alone. It is difficult to explain this to company town residents, all the more so that Vladimir Putin personally promised to increase funding. For this reason, the republic’s recovery plan will be changed in 2011. “For supervision purposes, a new intergovernmental commission will be set up with Viktor Basargin, Russia’s Minister for Regional Development, at the head,” Shuvalov said at the Tskhinvali meeting.

The problem is that a virtual war has broken out between the two apparatchiks, President Kokoity and Moscow’s protege Prime Minister Vadim Brovtsev, over the considerable funds intended for rebuilding the republic. As a result, the budget was adopted as late as July, and builders have not yet received money and do not know when they will. Almost all construction work has ground to a halt, and builders only showed up at some places when Moscow VIPs were visiting. Tellingly, the premier is not taking part in a high-profile celebration of the se-cond anniversary of South Ossetia’s independence. He was not seen at any official event.

The Kremlin is in a quandary. It is common knowledge that Kokoity and his inner circle are shamelessly embezzling funds. But the attempts of Moscow bosses to put things in some order via their people are running up against the stiff opposition of local bureaucrats, linked with Kokoity by means of collective protection. It is impossible to break this vicious circle because the Ossetian president enjoys the support of rather influential people in the Russian corridors of power.

Introducing Col. Valery Yakhnovets, the republic’s new minister of defense, Kokoity said: “The Russian government’s first vice-premier has visited our republic, important goals were set, and people, who hamper the republic’s reconstruction, were named. Measures will be taken in the nearest future about the South Ossetian and Russian officials who have been sabotaging and slowing down the reconstruction of South Ossetia… Some bureaucrats, invited from Russia, were caught embezzling funds: they have foiled the reconstruction of South Ossetia.” The president thus made it clear that the top Russian leadership supports nobody else but him.

In reality, all this looks like a bluff. Brovtsev is supported by Viktor Basargin, Russia’s Minister for Regional Development. It is he and Yury Zubakov, Deputy Secretary of the Security Council, who provided ample support to the Ossetian premier when an attempt was made in Tskhinvali in the spring of this year to pass a vote of no confidence in the government. No matter how hard Kokoity tried to change the existing order, reconstruction funds will still be coming from Basargin’s ministry and, therefore, it is Brovtsev who will be distributing them. And the fact that the new commission will be headed by the minister of regional development promises Kokoity no good, at least in terms of money. While bureaucratic battles break out and proceed, with variable success, in Moscow’s and Tskhinvali’s corridors of power, residents of South Ossetia’s capital and the neighboring villages, who remain homeless, are losing the remnants of patience and falling into despair.

Tskhinvali residents sadly joke that Georgia, the loser in the war, has managed to provide all its refugees from South Ossetia (thousands of people, including Ossetians) with cottages. They built a township near the conflict zone in just a few months, while the winners have been unable even set up tents for more than two years. “What is going on should not surprise either local residents or the Russian leadership. Everybody knew what Kokoity and his regime are like… Yet the Kremlin decided to appoint him president of the region, and he acts accordingly, as usual… All that was built there, in addition to some ‘showpiece’ structures, are Russian mi-litary bases,” Temuri Yakobashvili, Georgia’s Minister of State for Reintegration, told the Moscow-based Neza-visimaya gazeta.

It is now clear to all that many Tskhinvali residents will never receive housing. So a pressure group of the South Ossetians who remained homeless as a result of the August 2008 war has turned to Western states for help in reconstructing their buildings. In their words, numerous letters to the republican and Russian leadership did not change the catastrophic situation. The South Ossetian homeless victims of fire are openly critical of the actions of the Russian government which “gives money but is unable or reluctant to control it.” The address says: “We request the aid to be given directly to the homeless, bypassing the governments of South Ossetia and Russia, because we no longer trust either of them,” resident of Tskhinvali Zema Tedeyeva, who signed this address, told Moscow journalists. “We have been living on the street for two years now. It would be better without that war and that independence. We would at least have our houses intact.” This address emerged a day after First Vice-Premier Igor Shuvalov made an inspection tour of South Ossetia. Tadeyeva’s words carry quite a dangerous subtext: the public at large is beginning to think that it would be better to be part of Georgia and the stubbornly-fought-for independence appears to be useless.

Georgia was the first to react to this address. “If a certain state chooses to help, we will not hinder them. On the contrary, we will do our best to have this aid reach addressees in the Tskhinvali region,” Temuri Yakobashvili said. On his part, Kokoity claimed that the blame for thwarting the reconstruction effort lies with “the pro-Georgian forces, including those in Moscow… They are sending ‘specialists’ to Tskhinvali, who are devising corruption schemes here.” Indeed, a small dog will bark loudly…

Problems between Moscow and South Ossetia are snowballing. The first and foremost question has to do with Kokoity. He has serious political problems. His second presidential term expires in November 2011. During the parliamentary elections in South Ossetia in May 2009, Sergei Naryshkin categorically opposed those changes to the Constitution of South Ossetia which would lift the limit on the number of presidential terms. There is evidence that Moscow has began to look for a successor to Eduard Kokoity. Among the likely candidates are Dmitry Medoyev, the republic’s ambassador to Russia; Zurab Kokoity, chairman of the ruling Unity party; and the local Communist leader Stanislav Kochiev.

A striking difference between the way refugees were settled in Tskhinvali and in Georgia is, naturally, irking Moscow. A normal reaction of South Ossetians to their plight is emigration. Villages around Tskhinvali have been practically deserted, and the number of residents in the capital is diminishing with amazing speed. If this continues, Russia will have nobody to protect. This is a political problem for which Moscow failed to find a solution.

Naryshkin demanded that reconstruction work be finished before the year’s end. Builders only have two months at their disposal before rainfalls come and make it impossible to work. And nobody will be making a special effort. Shouts have been heard more than once from Moscow, but everything remained as mere words.

It is impossible to patch up the South Ossetian black hole, for Russia itself is down with the same disease. So the Kremlin will have to lug this trunk without a handle for a very long time. Is Moscow aware of this?