Apropos of the new "spy" story in Tbilisi, we consider it necessary to say the following.

Mikheil Saakashvili's regime is suffering from a chronic spy mania spurred by anti-Russian bias. In the last few years, the Georgian government has repeatedly resorted to engineering such scandals, cynically hoping to get domestic or foreign policy dividends.

Once again, the provocation was deliberately timed just ahead of a number of high-profile international events. The upcoming NATO Lisbon summit gives Georgia's leadership a chance to attract attention to itself through the scandal. How not to recall the similar allegedly "successful disclosure of smuggling of radioactive materials from Abkhazia" before the International Conference on Nuclear Security in the US in April this year?

Likewise obviously the Georgian side is getting ready to come out to the OSCE summit in Astana on December 1-2 with another pinch of confrontational anti-Russian rhetoric, desiring to impose on summit participants its own vision of the situation in the Caucasus. It is no secret that such Georgian shenanigans have been treated with increasing skepticism by the international community of late, particularly after the EU (Tagliavini's Commission) report unambiguously attested that it was Saakashvili who started the military conflict in the Caucasus in August 2008.

Another obvious goal is to use the bogey of the "Russian threat" to maintain anti-Russian hysteria in the country.

But this transparent provocation is hardly going to have the effect that its organizers want. Everybody has long since understood what such Tbilisi propaganda stunts are worth.

November 5, 2010