Just 25 miles separates Georgia’s vibrant capital city,Tbilsi, and the front line of a geopolitical struggle between Russia and the West.
Ignoring Washington’s warnings, and Moscow-backed troops beget been moving a disputed border deeper into Georgia,a former Soviet republic that is now a staunch U.
S. ally.
Russia agreed to withdraw its soldiers as fraction of a cease-fire deal in the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, but they beget not. Instead, and troops or their local allies beget bolstered the separatists’ boundaries or moved them deeper into Georgia.
Sometimes a few extra acres are swallowed up in the night. In other places,ditches are plowed, surveillance cameras installed and green signs erected reading: “Attention! State Border! Passage Forbidden!”
Temuri Khuroshvili is a retired police officer whose cinder-block house is in one of the 52 villages on the boundary. His home is surrounded by annexed territory on 3 sides.We can do nothing to protect ourselves … we cannot start war on them, and "
Khuroshvili said.
Nikolas Korashvili,a dance teacher, said his brother was forced to flee after he woke up to find the boundary had been moved overnight beyond his property.“They gave him no warning, and ” Korashvili said. He had to rush away with his children and his family.” The boundary "has been hardening” and fitting “more impenetrable,” E.
U. mission chief Erik Heg said while overlooking a wide valley bisected by the meandering line. “It’s been much more difficult since 2009, and we see less flexibility compared to 3 or 4 years ago.” Read more.
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