Russian General Staff: Georgia planned to take Abkhazia via South Ossetia

Генштаб РФ: Грузия через Южную Осетию планировала захватить Абхазию

Georgia planned to attack Abkhazia if its campaign in Tskhinvali succeeded. The statement was made today, August 26, at a Moscow press conference by Anatoly Nogovitsyn, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, reports an IA Regnum correspondent.

According to Nogovitsyn, valuable maps, which evidently demonstrate preparations to take Abkhazia by force, came into the possession of the Russian army. As the general told reporters, the operation was intended to be carried out in one day. Following day one, according to Nogovitsyn's sources, the command of the Georgian forces planned to leave for the city of New Athos and then to occupy the capital of the republic, Sokhumi. Nogovitsyn drew attention to the detail that artillery bombardment should precede any ground invasion. The signal for commencement of operations, or 'H-hour,' would have been dawn, from which the operation took its name--'Morning Dawn,'" said Nogovitsyn. But, according to Nogovitsyn, the Georgian leadership did not go ahead with the forceful resolution of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict only because the blitzkrieg in South Ossetia failed. "Thanks to the courage of the Russian peacekeepers, the actions of South Ossetia's top brass, and the decision to introduce divisions of the 58th army into the conflict zone, we managed to prevent Georgian aggression against Abkhazia," said Anatoly Nogovitsyn.