Russia smashes Georgian army, sends NATO message

By Ralph Boulton - Analysis

TBILISI (Reuters) - A roll of explosions at a Russian-occupied military base this week sent a clear Kremlin message to Georgia about the frailty of its infant military and its prospects for NATO membership.

The Russian army destroyed a hoard of Georgian arms and ammunition captured in a brief war that saw Georgian forces scattered, their bases seized and equipment carried off.

"Of course, there was a great symbolism to them doing this at the Senaki base," said Professor Tornike Sharashenidze of the Georgian Institute for Public Affairs.

"In their eyes Senaki was a bit of NATO that they just don't want to see in Georgia."

Senaki, in western Georgia, was a 'showpiece' base built to NATO specifications under a military buildup launched by President Mikheil Saakashvili after his 2003 "Rose Revolution".

Barracks were of a level of comfort unfamiliar to Russian soldiers, facilities and equipment were NATO-style, many of its soldiers trained in alliance countries.

"It's all wrecked now," Deputy Defence Minister Batu Kutelia told Reuters. "The buildings, the arms, all gone. If you consider that this is one of the few such modern bases we have, this was very important for us."

Witnesses saw Russian troops, who had earlier parried a Georgian attack on the pro-Russia rebel region of South Ossetia and thrust into Georgia's heartland, remove crates of equipment at other bases, airports and ports throughout the country.

Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of Russia's General Staff, employed a military directness.

"We will not leave a single barrel, a single cartridge for Georgia, which initiated this bloodshed and shot at our peacekeepers and...civilians in South Ossetia," he told Interfax agency. What was not destroyed would be taken as war trophies.

RAPID BUILDUP

Georgia, which as a Soviet republic formed Moscow's frontline defence against NATO, now wants to join that alliance -- something Moscow deeply begrudges a country it still considers within its rightful, historical sphere of influence.

Western analysts believe Russia's decision -- after fighting over the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali -- to move against the Georgian military in the country's heartland was in part giving vent to Kremlin anger over Georgian NATO ambitions.

Georgia's army, now some 28,000 strong, was built up from scratch after the 1991 collapse and division of the Soviet Union. While rump armies fell 'ready-made' to larger former Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Russia, Georgia was left with virtually nothing.

Former President Eduard Shevardnadze began restoring the army after a civil war in the early 1990s dominated by irregular militias; but it was with the accession of Saakashvili that the spending soared and the real buildup began.