UNITED NATIONS, July 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Tbilisi's actions prove Georgia's administration is only thinking about creating military and political hysteria.
Churkin made the statement on Tuesday during a General Assembly meeting during which Georgian UN Ambassador Alexander Lomaia accused Russia of illegally occupying Georgian territory and conducting ethnic cleansing.
"Unfortunately, when observing both Georgia's military actions on the borders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and in its political and diplomatic behavior, we see that Georgia is still not thinking exclusively about peace, but is categorically inflating political and military hysteria," Churkin said.
In explaining Russia's actions during last August's brief war with Georgia, Churkin said "Russia saved the lives, honor and dignity of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian peoples as well as other peoples in the Caucasus."
Russia recognized the two republics' independence last August after expelling Georgian forces from South Ossetia, which Tbilisi had attacked in an effort to bring it back under central control. Since recognition of the two republics, Russia and Georgia have had no diplomatic ties.
Churkin called Lomaia's accusations "outrageous, unconstructive, and not leading to any measures in solving the problem in the Caucasus."
The Russian ambassador supported Russia's response to Georgia's aggression toward South Ossetia and attacks on Russian peacekeepers, saying Russia had exercised its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
To illustrate the importance of Russia's response to Georgian aggression, Churkin reminded the participants at the meeting of the UN peacekeepers' failure to act in the 1990s during ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica, where some 8,000 Bosnians were killed.
"We could not take upon ourselves the sins of a second Srebrenica. And that's exactly what it would have been, had we remained indifferent observers to the reckless crimes of the Georgian regime," Churkin said.
