Saakashvili’s televised address to the nation following the Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia’s independence on August 26.

As you know Russia’s made a unilateral decision in respect of Georgia’s two regions.

This is the first attempt since Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, when a large state tried to at first force a neighboring state to kneel down and then tries to openly annex [the neighboring state’s] two regions, hence is trying to redraw borders in Europe.

After a failure to kneel down Georgia as a result of military aggression, ouster of the Georgian government, shattering Georgia’s fundamental values and Georgia’s disappearance from map as they planned it, as well as after the Georgian army, people and the entire international community showed huge resistance and heroism Russia decided to announce about this unimaginable illegality.

I want everyone to understand one thing: Russia’s today’s step is totally illegal, which will have no legal consequences either for Georgia or rest of the world.

Today, yesterday and in recent weeks Russia made unimaginable strategic mistakes and hit an unimaginable blow to its place in the international community and in the history of the contemporary world.

My entire presidency was dedicated to preventing staying alone in a situation in which we are now.

Russia’s all the actions so far were directed towards leaving Georgia without supporters and alone as it was the case in 1921 [when the Bolshevik Red Army invaded Georgia]. This plan of Russia has been totally thwarted.

Georgia was totally alone and with no supporters – almost 100% of the world population even did not know the name and location of this country – back in 1992-1993 [when Georgia lost control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia].

But now Georgia has gained a huge international support and solidarity from all over the world and support towards our territorial integrity and we would have failed to gain such a huge support, even if we tried for 200 years, if not the mistakes made by Russia. Our intensive efforts of recent years brought results through mutual solidarity and through the mistakes made by Russia.

I want you to know that the Russia’s decision is being unanimously condemned by EU, the United States, Japan and all the civilized states in the world. All these states say that Georgia’s territorial integrity is totally untouchable.

Up to now we had to permanently speak out that these are not Georgia’s internal problems, that Russia is part of it, that Russia not a peace-loving country and that Russia is not an impartial ‘peacemaker.’ Unfortunately we were not able to confirm this to many [countries], because they had much other job to do [meaning that they had other priorities].

But now the restoration of Georgia’s territorial integrity and protection of Georgia’s independence is no longer a matter of only Georgia or a matter of Georgia-Russian relations; this is a matter of Russia and the rest of the civilized world, said president Saakashvili.

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