Strongman, The

in Abkhazia, but his letter – and Medvedev’s reply – revealed fundamental disagreements. Saakashvili proposed the removal of Russian peacekeepers from the areas of Abkhazia closest to Georgia, and the return of Georgian refugees to these areas (Gali and Ochamchira) which would be jointly administered by Georgia and Abkhazia. Only after this (in December, Saakashvili conjectured) could there be an agreement on the non-use of force, and on the return of Georgian refugees to the rest of Abkhazia. As a sweetener, Saakashvili offered Georgia’s help in preparing the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, which is just north of Abkhazia – but in the meantime he called for the ‘rapid withdrawal’ of Russian military reinforcements and the annulment of Putin’s directive of 16 April upgrading relations with the breakaway regions. In his reply Medvedev welcomed the offer to help with the Sochi Games, but politely rejected everything else as pie in the sky. It was hard to imagine, he said, joint Georgian–Abkhaz administration of any part of Abkhazia, and it was premature to speak of the return of refugees. The priority was for Georgia to take real measures to reduce tension, and, above all, to sign a non-use-of-force agreement with the Abkhaz side and to withdraw Georgian troops from the Kodori Valley. If Saakashvili would agree to that, Medvedev offered a summit meeting to sign the relevant documents in July or August.
    The Russians tried to work through the Americans to put pressure on their ally. Sergei Lavrov called Condoleezza Rice and said: ‘Saakashvili is playing with fire. Keep him away from adventuring. Convince him to sign an agreement for non-use of force.’
    Rice replied, according to Lavrov: ‘Sergei, don’t worry. He wants to be a member of NATO. He knows very well that if he uses force, he can forget about NATO.’ Rice remembers the conversation. She says she even added: ‘It will be another generation before they are in NATO if they use force.’ But she also told the Russians that their own menacing actions were making it ‘difficult for Saakashvili in terms of domestic audiences to sign a no-use-of-force pledge’.
    Medvedev and Saakashvili had one more encounter before war became inevitable. It was a steamy Saturday night in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. The next day, 6 July, was President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s birthday, and he had brought exalted guests from many countries to an exclusive nightclub to celebrate. Medvedev had declined to meet Saakashvili for formal talks, but the Georgian approached him several times. Medvedev recalled later: ‘He’s a difficult man to avoid, because if he wants to get hold of you he sticks to you! We talked while sitting on a bus, and we talked while taking a walk in the park. In the evening we went out for a cup of tea and a glass of wine ... we sat on a sofa and kept discussing the prospect of a meeting.’
    The two men have different, and contradictory, memories of these conversations. Since it appears to have been a crucial moment in the breakdown of communication, leading a month later to war, the two versions deserve to be told.
    Saakashvili says that he pressed for a follow-up summit in Sochi, as discussed at St Petersburg, but that Medvedev was evasive and hinted he was not in control: ‘He said, “You know, I’m so pleased to be with you here, and we are listening to the same music, we like the same social environment, we are at ease with each other. In many ways we might have the same background, but back in Moscow there are different rules of the game, and I would not be easily understood if I rushed to a meeting with you now.”
    ‘And I said, “Look, a meeting is better than no meetings and we should get somewhere.” But he said, “A meeting now will be a disappointment because we will not get anywhere, and we might come off even worse than before.” And I tell him, “Dmitry, come on, what could be worse than we have now? We have daily provocations, things are really spiralling out of control, we have these incidents on the ground, it cannot get any worse.” And here he stopped me and said, “Well, I think you are deeply mistaken here. You will see, very soon, it might get much, much worse.” And then he basically turned around and left.’
    It must be stressed that Saakashvili was speaking with the benefit of hindsight – after the war that broke out one month later. One must also remember that he has a mission to shape