South Ossetia Plans on a Referendum-
Anatoly Bibliov, the president of South Ossetia, announced at the end of the March that he’s ready to proceed with taking steps to join Russia. According to a report by Dave DeCamp at Antiwar.com referendum on South Ossetia’s prospective accession to Russia is expected to be held in the next few months.
Currently, South Ossetia is a breakaway state that has not been recognized by a large portion of the international community. Most nations recognize South Ossetia as a part of Georgia. Only countries such as Nauru, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela recognize the independence of South Ossetia. It received de facto independent status after Russia intervened in Georgia during the Russo-Georgian War of 2008. At the time, Russia helped South Ossetian forces stave off Georgian forces under the command of then-Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.
The former Georgian President had strong ambitions of bolstering the Georgian state and re-asserting its control over territories such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which had been in conflict with Tbilisi since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“I believe that unification with Russia is our strategic goal, our path, the aspiration of the people,” stated South Ossetian President Anatoly Bibilov, per a report by Al Jazeera. “We will take the relevant legislative steps shortly. The republic of South Ossetia will be part of its historical homeland – Russia.”
A spokeswoman for Bibilov said South Ossetia has plans of holding a referendum on the issue of joining Russia as a result of the “window of opportunity that opened in the current situation [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine].”
According to Viktor Vodolatsk, a member of Russia’s parliament, the question of South Ossetia joining Russia will be placed on the ballot either in May or June. Per a report by TASS, South Ossetia has consulted with Moscow on the referendum.
Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani was livid about these developments. On May 31, 2022, Zalkalian stated that “it is unacceptable to speak of any referendums while the territory is occupied by Russia.” Zalkaliani proclaimed that the referendum “will have no legal force.”
The United States declared that it wouldn’t recognize the results of the referendum. State Department spokesman Ned Price announced that the US “will not recognize the results of any effort by Russia or its proxies to divide sovereign Georgian territory.”
An integral part of Russian grand strategy in the post-Soviet Union era has been its use of passportization — a process where Russia grants passports to residents of foreign territories in a short period of time.
Russia has used this passportization process with not only South Ossetia, but also the Abkhazia and the Donbass republics in Eastern Ukraine, all which have populations who are generally sympathetic to the Russian Federation. These passport grants are usually extended to citizens in separatist regions prior to or after Russian military interventions. For example, 90% of the South Ossetian population held Russian passports by 2006. From there, the Kremlin has tried to integrate these territories into the Russian state.
South Ossetia has a population of over 53,000 people and is made up of ethnic groups such as Ossetians (89.9%), Georgians (7.4%), and Russians (1.1%). Its integration into Russia would advance the Kremlin’s geopolitical ambitions in the Caucasus where it wants to maintain primacy and keep external actors from establishing a foothold in.
South Ossetia Plans on a Referendum-
