Day: November 9, 2023

Saboteurs in Abkhazia

On the evening of November 8th a group of unknown saboteurs was suddenly “discovered” in Abkhazia. But a few hours later, the authorities announced that this information was not confirmed. Now everyone is wondering what it was.

Famous Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov was the first to report that a Georgian sabotage group of up to 50 people sneaked into Abkhazia in his Telegram channel with the note “Urgent”.

Citing an unidentified source in the Abkhazian Defense Ministry, Solovyov even outlined the goal of the saboteurs – to blow up Sukhumi airport.

The news about saboteurs initially raised great doubts in my mind. More precisely, it was not even the content of this news that seemed doubtful, but the way it appeared.

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Local media are usually the first to report such events. But in this case Abkhazian media were silent, and suddenly Vladimir Solovyov was telling the world about some saboteurs with reference to the Ministry of Defense of Abkhazia. But I can not imagine that someone in the Ministry of Defense, even with 100% reliable information, would immediately call not the leadership of the republic, but Vladimir Solovyov.

Half an hour later, Abkhazian authorities further confused the situation. Abkhazian Interior Minister Robert Kiut said that locals saw seven armed men in the mountains near the village of Azanta. The minister did not explain where the other four dozen saboteurs claimed by Solovyov had gone. But he noted that the seven were armed with “foreign weapons, presumably M-4 automatic rifles, in black uniforms, wearing masks, helmets, well equipped, and they had a copter that was flying over the area.”

Soon the Interior Ministry made a new statement that information about saboteurs into the territory of Abkhazia has not been confirmed.

And another half an hour later, Solovyov deleted this from his channel. It remains unclear where he got it from.

Theoretically, there are only two people in Abkhazia with whom Solovyov is close enough to get such information from them. They are President Aslan Bzhania and Foreign Minister Inal Ardzinba. But it is unclear why they needed to spread such a lie.

The Kremlin does not need this game of fictitious saboteurs either. Yes, Moscow has a lot of claims to the Abkhazian authorities, who promised them everything – to allow Russians to buy apartments in Abkhazia, to allow Russian business in the local energy sector, etc. – but have not kept any of these promises so far. But even with this in mind, I do not think that the Kremlin itself invented and launched this fake about saboteurs “with a shelf life” of two hours.

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North Korea has denounced the visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Seoul as a “provocative” act that would escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula. In a commentary published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday, the North accused Blinken of seeking “the extreme confrontation” with Pyongyang and preparing for “the second Korean war”.

Blinken arrived in Seoul late Wednesday for a two-day trip, during which he is expected to meet with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin and President Yoon Suk Yeol. The visit is part of Blinken’s first Asia tour as the top US diplomat, following his stop in Tokyo where he met with Japanese officials and reaffirmed the US-Japan alliance.

The North Korean commentary claimed that Blinken’s trip was aimed at “igniting a war” against the North, which has been under heavy sanctions for its nuclear and missile programs. It also criticized the US for sending a nuclear-weapons-capable B-52 bomber and a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the region last month, calling them “war tools”.

The commentary warned that the US would face a “grave consequence” if it continued to provoke the North, and urged South Korea to distance itself from the US and pursue an independent policy. It said that the South should not be “a puppet” of the US, but a “partner” of the North in achieving peace and reunification on the peninsula.

French journalists Pierre Sautreuil and Thomas Guichard have won the Young Journalist Prize from Fondation Varenne for their report on “The lost drawings of Nagorno-Karabakh: on the trail of an Armenian family in exile” published in La Croix L’Hebdo.