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  • 2022-07-08 (xsd:date)
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  • South Ossetia) and 7th (Abkhazia) military bases (en)
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  • On July 5, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko claimed that NATO is fully responsible for starting a second Cold War between the West and Russia. "We do not want a return to the Cold War. It is NATO that is imposing it on us. We are not expanding; we are not setting up our bases somewhere ... " Grushko said in an interview with the Moscow city government-owned daily Argumenty I Fakty.That statement is false and contradicts the history of the Russian military’s expanding presence abroad over the past 14 years.Georgia, Armenia, Central AsiaBefore the August 2008 Russo-Georgian War, Russia had two military bases in that Caucasus country. The Gudauta base was a training center for the Russian peacekeeping forces of the Commonwealth of the Independent States stationed in Abkhazia. The second base was in South Ossetia, where peacekeepers composed of Ossetians, Russians and Georgians were stationed under an OSCE monitoring mission.After 2008, Russia expanded and transformed the CIS peacekeepers’ training center in Gudauta into a full-fledged military base for the Russian armed forces. This military base includes four mechanized infantry battalions, a tank battalion, two artillery battalions, a rocket artillery battalion, a sniper company, a drone company and a reconnaissance battalion.In February 2009, the Russian Armed Forces established the 4th Guards Military Base for troops stationed in the occupied Georgian region of South Ossetia. That base and its 5,000 military personnel are mainly located in the city of Tskhinvali, but separate units are spread across South Ossetia. In March 2022, units from both Russian military bases in Georgia were deployed to Ukraine to join the invasion forces. In order to staff the armed forces of the Russian Federation (en)
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