In Beijing, only hours after the Georgian assault began, Vladimir Putin met both President Bush and President Sarkozy. Both tried to caution restraint in Russia’s response, and both were rebuffed. Putin was no longer commander-in-chief, but he acted as if he was. Sarkozy introduced Putin to his son, Louis, who received a warm hug – but that was the last of Putin’s friendly gestures. Sarkozy’s aide, Jean-David Levitte, recalls his boss’s attempt at peacemaking. ‘He said to President Putin, “Listen, I currently hold the presidency of the EU and I can make the EU do everything possible to stop this war, a war that would be a catastrophe for Russia, for Europe, and for Russian and European cooperation. But for that, Vladimir, I need 48 hours.” The answer? “Nyet.” So President Sarkozy said, “Hang on, Vladimir, do you realise what’s at stake here? At least give me 24 hours.” “Nyet, impossible.” The president said, “Well, give me until 8pm.” “Nyet.”’24
It was President Medvedev, though, who took the decision to send in Russian forces. He claims, somewhat improbably, that he did not even discuss the matter with Putin for 24 hours, due to the absence of a secure line to Beijing. Medvedev says that he was woken by the defence minister to be told of the attack on Tskhinvali, but hoped it was just a provocation. It was only when he was told that a tent full of Russian peacekeepers had been hit, killing them all, that he gave the order to counterattack. Anyone who believed that Medvedev was a ‘softie’ compared to the strongman Putin would be mistaken. It was the president (he says) who ordered the invasion – without even consulting his Security Council. The Council did eventually meet, and supported the decision, but this was still before Putin arrived back from China. Eventually Putin returned, flew to Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia, to see the situation on the ground for himself, and then to Sochi, where he finally met Medvedev to discuss the situation.25
On the second day of the war, Russian bombers flew 120 sorties, aiming to destroy Georgia’s defence infrastructure – including all the shiny new hardware acquired from the USA, Israel and Ukraine.
The next day Condoleezza Rice, who had just started a vacation with her aunt and sister at the luxury Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, called Sergei Lavrov and demanded an end to the invasion. The conversation became a major bone of contention between the two. Lavrov said the Russians had three conditions: ‘First, the Georgians have to go back to their barracks.’
Rice said, ‘OK.’
‘Second, they have to sign a non-use-of-force pledge.’
‘OK.’
‘And three, just between us, Saakashvili has to go.’
Rice could not believe her ears: ‘Sergei, the American secretary of state and the Russian foreign minister do not have a private conversation about overthrowing a democratically elected president.’26
She decided to go public with what she regarded as a Russian threat of regime change in Georgia. On 10 August the US envoy to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, announced: ‘Foreign Minister Lavrov told Secretary Rice that the democratically elected president of Georgia – and I quote – “Saakashvili must go” – end of quote. This is completely unacceptable and crosses a line.’
Lavrov was incensed. He said in an interview: ‘To announce to the entire world what you have discussed with your partner is not part of our diplomatic practice.’ He did not entirely deny that he had said it, though, but insisted he merely indicated ‘that we would never deal with him again’.27
By 11 August the Georgians, having seen Gori bombarded and emptied of its citizens, believed the Russian army was planning to move on the capital, Tbilisi. There was panic in the president’s chancellery: pictures were taken off the walls, documents stuffed into boxes in readiness for a quick evacuation. Carl Bildt and the American envoy, Matt Bryza, were there, calculating they had little more than half an hour before the Russians would enter the city.
Saakashvili appealed to President Bush for the help he thought had been promised. ‘I told him, “Look, right now, on your watch, you might see the reversal of the demise of the Soviet Union. It might be restored right now in my country, and it would be a very sad turn of history – for us certainly, for us it would be the end – but certainly for the US and for the world.”’28
His allegation that Russia was about to enter his capital and reincorporate Georgia into some new version of the Soviet Union could have been seen as either paranoid, manipulative or simply as a disingenuous attempt to cover up his own calamitous decision to go to war. But Medvedev later indirectly confirmed that, while ‘our mission at the time was to destroy Georgia’s war machine’, more radical options were considered: ‘Saakashvili should be grateful to me for halting our troops at some point. If they had marched into Tbilisi, Georgia would most likely have a different president by now.’
The threat was taken seriously in Washington, especially in view of Lavrov’s comment to Rice. Bush convened his national security team. Defence Secretary Robert Gates recalls: ‘There was a clear feeling on the part of virtually everybody in the situation room that the Russians had flat out committed an aggression against an independent state, and were proceeding to dismember it.’29
The Americans even contemplated intervening militarily themselves. According to Secretary of State Rice: ‘There was a little bit of chest beating around the table about what we would do and about how we could signal the Russians militarily, that this would be a foolhardy thing to do.’
National security adviser Stephen Hadley says: ‘The issue was, do we put in combat power or not? What you needed was ground troops if you were going to save Tbilisi.’30
But that would have risked conflict between the world’s greatest nuclear powers, and voices such as that of Robert Gates urged caution: ‘I was pretty adamant that we not give weapons assistance to Saakashvili. My feeling at the time was that the Russians had baited a trap and Saakashvili had walked right into it, and so they were both culpable.’
In the end, the Russians stopped and turned around, and the Americans no longer needed to consider a military response. They did send navy transport planes to Tbilisi airport, and warships through the Black Sea to the port of Batumi, to deliver humanitarian aid (and even that infuriated the Russians), but the decision was to let diplomacy work. Despite considerable misgivings about the competence of President Sarkozy, they decided to allow France, which at that point held the rotating presidency of the European Union, to take the lead.
Although the Russians maintained at the time that only Medvedev was involved in the talks with Sarkozy, Putin was there too, predictably playing the hard man. It was during those talks that he declared, ‘I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls.’ (The Russians denied the report, but Putin has since himself indirectly confirmed that he did use the expression.31)
Sarkozy took with him to the talks a draft agreement which Lavrov says, ‘we corrected a little bit’. In fact the six-point document was almost obliterated with amendments, so that, for example, the first sentence read ‘The Georgian
Sarkozy’s adviser, Jean-David Levitte, recalls: ‘They’d completely changed the logic, it was no longer a ceasefire, it was no longer a retreat of troops, it was essentially a way of imposing a kind of diktat on Georgia.’
Sarkozy proved to be, in the words of President Medvedev’s adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, ‘tough, very tough’. Eventually he tired of the Russians’ negotiating tactics. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘we’ve been going round in circles with this draft. I’m picking up my pen and writing a new draft. Right, first of all the conflicting parties agree to the non-use of force. Agreed – yes or no? Yes.’