Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 74April 17, 2009 02:12 PM Age: 3 days
Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Home Page, Vlad’s Corner, Georgia, Military/Security, Featured
By: Vladimir Socor
On April 16, Georgian authorities prevented the Kremlin-coordinated youth group, Nashi, from provoking incidents at the South Ossetia demarcation line and in Tbilisi. A convoy of five vehicles carrying 20 Nashi activists, the "Moscow-Tskhinvali-Tbilisi Motorcade," had set off from Moscow on April 10, reaching Tskhinvali (via the Roki Tunnel) on April 15, and planned to continue into Tbilisi or, alternatively, stage an incident at the demarcation line.Georgian Internal Affairs Minister personnel detained Nashi "commissar" Aleksandr Kuznetsov in a hotel in the city of Gori, situated in Georgia's interior near the demarcation line, during the night of April 15-16. Kuznetsov's video recorded statements, excerpted on Georgian television channels (Rustavi-2 TV, Imedi TV, April 16) overlap with Nashi spokesmen's statements in Moscow at the motorcade's start (Interfax, RIA Novosti, April 10).
Kuznetsov told Georgian interrogators that he was en route to Tbilisi for consultations with local contacts about the logistics of the group's crossing into Georgian-controlled territory, moving on to Tbilisi, finding accommodation in the city, and designating a venue for a public stunt by Nashi amid the anti-government demonstrations in Tbilisi. The convoy was to reach Tbilisi by the evening of April 16.
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