Georgia clamps down a blockade on vital services for Russian servicemen stationed in bases

Unfriendly moves by the Georgian side have put in jeopardy vital supplies to servicemen of the Group of Russian Troops in Transcaucasia /GRVZ/: medical aid, food and material supplies, the GRVZ press-service said in a statement, received by RIA Novosti on Friday.

"A direct effect of these measures was the impossibility of providing servicemen with treatment in the central military hospital in Tbilisi, including those from the contingent of peacekeeping forces in the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict," it is stressed in the document.

The GRVZ press-service reported that Georgia's Defence Ministry, guided by political motives and pleading an aggravation of relations between Russia and Georgia, is categorically refusing from September 19 of this year to issue permits for the movement of GRVZ motor transport through Georgia's territory.

"The sanctions introduced and the unwillingness of the leadership of Georgia's Defence Ministry to discuss the existing situation are assuming the nature of a transport blockade of Russian military bases". The GRVZ command looks to a weighed and constructive approach by the Georgian side in the existing situation in the interests of normalising Russian-Georgian relations, the press-service concluded.