Anatoly Bibilov, the current incumbent leader of occupied Tskhinvali / South Ossetia, has signed a decree calling for a July 17 referendum on “joining” the region with Russia . The “Supreme Court” of the region upheld the decision .
“We did it,” Anatoly Bibilov wrote in a telegram yesterday.
“We have taken an important step – we are going home, we are going to Russia,” he added.
Anatoly Bibilov first announced a referendum on joining Russia a few days before the first round of the region’s April 10 “presidential election.”
The loss in the second round did not prevent Bibilov from unilaterally appointing the referendum without consulting the next leader, Anatoly Gagloev.
It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post .
Gagloev’s position
“As the son of my homeland and the nation-elected president of South Ossetia, I fully support the idea of uniting the divided Ossetian nation into a united Russia,” said Gagloev, who is due to take office on May 24.
“But the question is whether this is a historic moment when it is necessary to issue a decree on holding a referendum and speeding it up, ” he added .
The future leader questioned whether Bibilov had agreed to a decision with Russia in accordance with bilateral agreements, the absence of which, he said, would jeopardize Russia’s goals.
“I hope this is the case, otherwise * the fate of the 1992 referendum will be repeated. To those who have forgotten, I would like to remind you that referendums on the accession of the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics were held without the consent of Russia. “Eight years have passed since then and we see that [the referendums] have not yet reached their goal,” he said.
Gagloev criticized Bibilov for making the decision without consulting him, saying he would take further steps regarding the referendum “in accordance with international law, consultation and implementation of agreements with the Russian Federation.”
* In 1992, a referendum in occupied Tskhinvali ended in strange results: voters voted for both the region’s independence and integration with Russia. Ethnic Georgians boycotted the vote. Official Tbilisi and the international community did not recognize the results of the referendum.
Prehistory
In March, official Tbilisi condemned the referendum announced by Tskhivanli, saying that “it is unacceptable to talk about any referendums in the light of the fact that the territory of Georgia is occupied.”
The occupied region was the main epicenter of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, which ended with an EU-brokered ceasefire agreement on 12 August.
Russia, which exercises effective control over the occupied region, recognized the independence of Tskhinvali and Abkhazia on August 26, 2008.
After the 1991-1992 conflict and the 2008 war, some 30,000 ethnic Georgians fled their homes and became refugees.
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Let the countries who wants to become part of Russia do so. They can see that it’s better to be part of Russia than to be an American colony. I bet very few people in Crimea, if any, would prefer to swop back and be part of Ukraine again.