Georgian Interior Minister Irakli Okruashvili said at a news briefing on July 8 that the Georgian government will “take all necessary measures to free South Ossetia from de facto President Eduard Kokoev and his criminal clan.”
“Kokoev will strongly regret forcing our detained soldiers to kneel. We will never forgive him for this. He will be held responsible for this,” Okruashvili said. The Interior Minister was quick, however, to add that the Georgian authorities will do their utmost to avoid armed confrontation.
South Ossetian militias disarmed and detained around 50 Georgian peacekeepers between two Georgian villages in the breakaway region early on July 8. Later, the Russian NTV television broadcasted footage showing the detained Georgian soldiers kneeling at gunpoint in Tskhinvali, the capital of self-styled South Ossetian Republic.
Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania demanded that the Russian peacekeepers deployed in the conflict zone help facilitate the release of the detained Georgian soldiers. He said that authorities in breakaway South Ossetia are provoking the Georgian side to take forceful actions.
“But we will not yield to this provocation. We did not even use force when we saw the humiliating footage of Georgian soldiers kneeling in Tskhinvali,” Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania said at a news briefing in the evening of July 8.