Georgia: Russian NCO Goes AWOL, Provoking Rhetorical Sideshow Between Tbilisi and Moscow

Tension between Moscow and Tbilisi is spiking yet again after Georgian authorities announced that a Russian soldier from the South Ossetian conflict zone had defected to Georgia.

Junior Sergeant Alexander Glukhov had been serving since December in the South Ossetian town of Akhalgori, a formerly Georgian-controlled settlement that is at the center of a fierce ongoing dispute over the Kremlin's compliance with the withdrawal agreement which brought hostilities between Russian and Georgia to a halt last August. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In an interview with EurasiaNet, Glukhov, 21, claimed that he left his battalion on January 12, and crossed over into Georgian-controlled territory, where he lived with local Georgian residents for nearly two weeks before alerting Georgian police. He did not identify the residents.

Earlier reports had stated that Glukhov left his battalion on January 26 and turned himself in to Georgian police. The statement given to EurasiaNet indicates that the Russian NCO had been absent without leave for 15 days before the Russian Defense Ministry issued a public statement. The ministry has not given any indication that Glukhov's commanders in Akhalgori were earlier aware of his absence.

Glukhov told EurasiaNet that he decided on January 26 "after eating lunch" to turn himself in to Georgian police. He did not elaborate about his reasons for his actions.

Glukhov, a native of Udmurtia, an autonomous republic in central Russia, stressed that bad "relations" with his commanding officer prompted him to go AWOL. In comments broadcast on Georgian television on the evening of January 27, he also complained about poor living conditions and inadequate food.

A computer programmer by training, Glukhov had four months left to serve on an 18-month tour of duty. Contrary to Russian media reports, the junior sergeant denied that he planned to stay in the army. "I thought about leaving earlier," he said. "But one day, I decided to go. The conditions were bad, [as was] the relationship . . . with my commander."

On January 28, Russian MPs called for an investigation into the Glukhov incident, according to reports by the Georgian television station Rustavi 2. The Russian Ministry of Defense has asserted that Georgian security forces captured Glukhov and brainwashed him, using the soldier to spread disinformation about Russia's operations in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

While the Russian government has demanded that Georgia hand over Glukhov, Georgian authorities maintain that they are not detaining him. "He is free to go back to Russia," Shota Utiashvili, a spokesperson for the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs, told EurasiaNet. "He doesn't want to go."

Utiashvili noted that Georgia is "legally and morally justified" in offering assistance to Glukhov. However, political analyst Alexander Rondeli cautioned that the situation is potentially "dangerous" for Tbilisi. "There is terrible pressure on Georgia," Rondeli said. "There are many Russian soldiers that want to escape. Russia is very afraid that if a sergeant escapes, they [other disgruntled soldiers] will leave."

The Interior Ministry's Utiashvili, however, played down the risk of retaliation from Moscow. "There are no specific threats," he said. "We are just receiving demands to hand him over."

Some elements of Glukhov's public statements seem destined to fuel controversy. For example, Glukhov asserted that he was deployed in South Ossetia in June, weeks before the outbreak of the August war, "to help the people against Georgia." Moscow has maintained that troops were sent into South Ossetia only after Georgia attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on August 8.

"In June, we began digging trenches and set up bunkers," Glukhov said. "Then combat alerts began there. We went to positions, stayed there for a week and went back. It turned out to be training."

Glukhov told EurasiaNet that he had first been in the mountains, near a small village that he had thought was in North Ossetia, "but might have been South Ossetia." His battalion was moved on August 5 to an unknown location in South Ossetia and then, on August 9, to the region's capital, Tskhinvali, he said.

Moscow has not responded to Glukhov's statement that he entered South Ossetia in June.

Another Georgian analyst, Tina Gogeliani of Tbilisi's International Center on Conflict and Negotiation, believes both sides are using the situation to try to score political points. According to Gogeliani, Glukhov is more of a distraction than a real danger. She noted that both sides are using the junior officer as a "kind of show."

"This issue is extremely exaggerated at a moment when there is no need to escalate tension," she said. "[It] is a nice point to blame each other. [The allegations] will [only] strengthen anti-Georgian [sentiments] in Russia and anti-Russian [sentiments] in Georgia."

Sitting in a park in central Tbilisi, Glukhov appeared unperturbed by the uproar he had created. He stressed that he was content with his decision to go AWOL from the Russian army.

According to Glukhov, the Georgian Ministry of Refugees and Accommodation is supposed to help him find work and a place to live; he is currently living in the capital with Georgians displaced during the war. The ministry told EurasiaNet that it had not yet received an official request to handle Glukhov's case.

"I want to stay here while everything calms down and then I want to return [to Russia]," he said, noting that he wants his parents to come and stay. "I don't plan on returning right now."

In an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, Glukhov's mother, Galina Glukhova, stated that her son called her on January 27 to let her know he had "bad news." Glukhov told her he was in Tbilisi, and asked her not to worry, the paper reported her as saying.