Вольная аннотация: Грузинская делегация бродит по выставке Eurosatory и плачет горючими слезами, что союзники отказываются им продавать все те классные штучки, что экспонируют. Правительство США, в рамках "перезагрузки", не разрешает продавать Грузии радары и рации, даже отказало в продаже холостых патронов, не говоря уж о чём-то более серьёзном. Представители компаний США и Израиля подтверждают наличие запрета на продажи оружия и недоумевают по этому поводу. Говорят, что у Грузии в результате нет возможности восстановить разрушенные радары ПВО и даже пополнить израсходованные в войне зенитные ракеты. Израильтяне, впрочем, мудро замечают, что Россия для них есть страна важная и им приходится заботиться об отношениях с ней. Также России преуспела в срыве переговоров Грузии о закупках оружия с Болгарией и прочими странами бывшего Варшавского договора.
Тем временем грузинские правительственные чиновники водят всяких иностранных гостей по границам ЮО и А, тычут пальцами в оккупированные территории и рассказывают, что оттуда на них недобро посматривают уже сотни Т-90 и, что ещё хуже, куча вооружённых ФСБшников (бывших КейДжиБи!).
Интересны заявленные грузинами текущие приоритеты закупок: 1 место - загоризонтные радары ПВО, 2-ое - наилучшее из доступного переносного противотанкового оружия, 3-е - современные тактические радиостанции.
"JANE'S DEFENSE WEEKLY: Georgia bemoans a dangerous embargo
Georgia claims it is being prevented from buying the equipment it needs to defend itself. Reuben F Johnson reports from the recent Eurosatory exhibition
Georgian emotions were running high at the Eurosatory defence exhibition in Paris in mid-June as officials expressed their frustration at being unable to purchase defence equipment.
At the same event representatives of US and Israeli companies stated that sales of defence equipment to Georgia remain obstructed by both US government policy and pressure from the Russian government.
The barriers to these sales originate from the brief war between Georgian and Russian armed forces in August 2008 and the subsequent settlement negotiated by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The ceasefire agreement resulted in a sizeable number of Russian troops remaining in the separatist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
During a visit to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi prior to Eurosatory Jane's was briefed by representatives of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs' (MIA's) intelligence directorate, Ministry of Defence and Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) on the precarious situation facing the country.
Georgia's concerns focus on the composition of the Russian units in the two provinces, which it claims are capable of far more than just protecting the borders of the separatist enclaves.
"These Russian formations include several hundred [Uralvagonzavod] T-90S main battle tanks, which you only need if you are preparing for an invasion. This is not just a strictly defensive posture," said an MIA officer who gave a tour of the line of control where Georgian troops face off against Russian forces within 100 m of their position.
"Also, a significant portion of these Russian troops are not regular army but armed formations of the Federal Security Service [the FSB: the current-day equivalent of the former Soviet KGB]," he continued.
Georgia's hardware requirements are focused around three main types of systems, according to Deputy Defence Minister Nodar Kharshiladze. "[Firstly] we need some over-the-horizon radars that can give us advance warning of any Russian movement across the border because we would have very little early warning given the distance between South Ossetia and [the Georgian city of] Gori," he told Jane's .
"Secondly, since Georgia would be fighting a defensive war to buy time for a ceasefire to be negotiated again, our ground units need the best possible man-portable anti-tank weapons in order to delay the advance of any Russian armoured offensive. Thirdly we need more current-day tactical radios in case of any breakdown in the land-line communications network."
The latter issue may represent the most significant threat to Georgian security. The country's main rail line runs from Poti, on the east coast, to Gori, just south of South Ossetia, and on further west to Tbilisi. "If a Russian offensive were to break out of South Ossetia and push through to Gori," explained a defence contractor based in Tbilisi and working with the Georgian military, "they could not only cut the country in half and shut down all heavy rail transport but they would also cut the main fibre- optic line that runs parallel to the rail network and disable all communications. This makes the ability of the Georgians to have a back-up radio network that is not dependent upon a fibre-optic network all the more crucial."
However, none of these systems have been made available for the Georgians to purchase, according to US and NATO personnel based in Tbilisi. This was confirmed by US and Israeli company representatives at Eurosatory.
A Georgian national at the defence exhibition who works for a major US provider of communications equipment told Jane's : "I have worked with this company for years and I know all of their products, all of the technology.
And yet, when we opened a new European office, I was not even permitted to attend its opening or see what was inside - all because of the current US administration's policy against allowing any further sales to my country.
"No one can understand what the US government's goal is in blocking these sales. Radios and radars are not offensive weapons," said the Tbilisi-based defence contractor, whose company is involved in training the Georgian military to NATO standards. "The Georgians also lost some of their air-defence radars during the conflict with Russia and now they cannot replace them - nor can they replenish any of the SAMs [surface-to-air missiles] that they fired at Russian air forces."
Other Georgian officials expressed their frustration with the situation by pointing out that "the US even prohibits the sale to us of blank ammunition to be used for training. Obviously pushing the 'reset' button with Russia is more important than our military."
The reservations of Israeli defence companies about trade with Georgia derive not from fear of an unofficial blockade by Washington but from Tel Aviv's concerns about its relations with Russia. "Russia is not an unimportant nation for us in a number of respects," said one Israeli industry representative at Eurosatory.
Both Israeli and Georgian defence analysts claim that an 'under the table' veto exists that Moscow can exercise on any arms sales to Georgia and that, in the words of a Georgian analyst, "this is not the first case of this sort as Russia constantly exerts pressure on the countries that sell weapons to the states whose relations with Moscow are not good.Russia has also succeeded in thwarting [any] negotiations with Bulgaria and other former countries of the Warsaw Pact".
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