VLADIKAVKAZ — President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday made a surprise visit to Vladikavkaz, near the border with South Ossetia, to commend soldiers on their valor during the conflict with Georgia and promise them a better future.
The visit, his first to the region since the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway Georgian republic of South Ossetia on August 7, appeared to be aimed at projecting an image of him as the politician calling the shots in Moscow.
The trip to Vladikavkaz, on the border with South Ossetia, followed a visit to Kursk, where he said during commemorations of a World War II battle that the killing of Russian citizens and peacekeepers would “not go unpunished.”
Medvedev’s trip to the North Ossetian capital traced the footsteps of his predecessor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who cut short his appearance at the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Beijing to fly to Vladikavkaz to visit field hospitals and meet with refugees who had fled the conflict.
“In Tskhinvali, you didn’t think about yourself and, in fulfilling your soldierly duty, well understood that you were essentially the last hope for defenseless people,” Medvedev told 58th Army personnel and peacekeepers, in comments released by the Kremlin.
“I am convinced that such a well-implemented, effective field operation, which was of a peacekeeping nature, will become one of the glorious pages in the history of the armed forces,” he said, Interfax reported.
He said an additional 40 billion rubles ($1.6 billion) had been earmarked to improve military living standards.
