The fear factor

As Russia is commemorating the first anniversary of its short-lived war with Georgia, the press, expert community and politicians are asking the same questions: what were the war's real casualties? Was the war unavoidable? Could Russia, Georgia and the international community have behaved differently and thus avoided the tragedy? Can the war repeat itself?
Polls from Russia's leading opinion research centres reveal that the public's general appraisal of Russia's participation in the war as a painful but unavoidable step remains almost unchanged since last year. However, moral justification of the war does not translate into the general feeling of security. Until recently, most of those polled still considered the situation around the separatist enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia "tense" and "insecure" and did not exclude the possibility of another armed conflict in the area.
Polls by the All-Russian Centre for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM) conducted over the last five years show several main patterns among attitudes to events in Georgia. The first was one of relatively pacifistic and passive attitudes before Mikheil Saakashvili's coming to power in the year 2003. This attitude was gradually replaced by one of concern and sympathy for Ossetians as armed skirmishes on the border became widespread in 2004. The public even slipped into a jingoistic mood at the moment of the initial attack against South Ossetia's capital Tskhinval in August 2008, and the armed intervention of Russian troops was greeted with more or less general approval.
After the shock of the war was offset by the economic crisis in 2008-2009, the public remained convinced of the need to support South Ossetia, but enthusiasm for economic aid lessened somewhat. The options of political, diplomatic and military support became more popular than direct cash transfers and state-financed construction projects.
According to a poll conducted by VTsIOM among 1600 respondents at 140 locations, 60 per cent of the respondents say Russia "did the right thing" when it got involved in the fighting and only 6 per cent hold that Russia was "wrong". The most widespread justification for the war was humanitarian: people most often cited the opinion that without Russian intervention, "South Ossetians would have been slaughtered".
According to a poll conducted by another respected Russian agency, the Levada Centre, 47 per cent of Russians now consider the situation in South Ossetia and Abkhazia "tense", a drop of 7 per cent from last year. In the Levada poll, 54 percent of Russians think that Russian troops ought to stay in South Ossetia. Only 24 per cent think that troops should be withdrawn, with 22 per cent undecided.
The war made many Russians reconsider their attitudes toward the conflicting principles of state sovereignty and the right of nations to self-determination. The share of people supporting the right of national self-determination grew from 19 per cent in 2004 to 35 percent now, obviously reflecting popular feeling of compassion for South Ossetians. Another 34 percent think that the right of nations to self-determination should be respected "in certain circumstances" and that cases like this should be reviewed "on individual basis".
Yet people are not always sure what Russia and South Ossetia should do with their newly formed alliance and South Ossetia's de facto independence from Georgia. One thing is certain: Russians do not want to see South Ossetia a part of Georgia again, as only 3 percent of respondents supported this solution.
Reactions of politicians to the events of last summer reflect a certain vagueness of public perceptions. "I have no doubt that Russia had to get involved in the conflict," said Sergei Mitrokhin, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party. "I don't think it was right to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries [but] I have no doubt, and international experts confirm, that it was Saakashvili who organised the provocation."
As usual in Russian history, the question, "Who is to blame?" is answered much more eagerly than the question, "What is to be done?"