MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed hope that the current Ukrainian leadership won’t repeat the actions of Georgia’s former president Mikhail Saakashvili in 2008 at a press conference on Tuesday.
"I will express hope that even the current Kiev regime won't follow the path of Mikhail Saakashvili of the August 2008 vintage," he said.
The Russian top diplomat reiterated that the situation at that time was the result of a NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 where "after lengthy torments" the members of the alliance wrote in their declaration that Georgia and Ukraine will join NATO. "Then Georgian president Mr. Saakashvili got instantly excited, it’s not hard for him, and began aggressive military actions, bombing his own citizens and Russian peacekeepers. The Ukrainian leadership at the time had more common sense and it didn’t follow the bad example," he noted.
At the same time, the foreign minister pointed out that the current Kiev regime is displaying "somewhat different properties," for instance, it is "susceptible to the negative influence" of the West.
Overnight on August 8, 2008, Georgia attacked South Ossetia. Russia defended civilians and its peacekeepers who had been deployed in the region since 1992. Over 1,000 people were killed as a result of a five-day war, including 72 Russian servicemen.
