President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday insisted he alone took all the decisions in the run-up to Russia’s war with Georgia, as the young Russian head of state seeks to prove he is a major political force.
In an interview with Russian television, Medvedev made no mention of his mentor and powerful premier Vladimir Putin playing a role in the decision to send Russian forces into battle against the Georgian army.
“I was the only one to take all the decisions,” Medvedev told the NTV channel in excerpts released by the Kremlin of the interview to be broadcast later on Friday.
“Consultations facilitate nothing as only one person — the president — is responsible for all the steps taken.”
The war was Medvedev’s first major test as president after taking over the Kremlin from Putin, who had ruled unchallenged for eight years.
Putin immediately became a powerful prime minister and is believed by many to wield most of the power in Russia. However, in the last months some commentators have seen signs of Medvedev seeking to build his own profile.
Both men have been at pains in the past year to emphasise that the president is institutionally the country’s commander in chief.
In the interview, Medvedev looked back to the night of August 7 2008 when, according to the Russian version of events, Georgian forces staged an unprovoked attack to retake the rebel Georgian region of South Ossetia.
Deciding whether to hit back “was an important moment of reflection, a weighing of the pros and the cons”, Medvedev said.
“The defence minister kept me informed, but I considered the information and took the decisions. It was the hardest thing but in the end we got it right,” he said.
“There are few such episodes in the life of any person, especially, a head of state, and it is probably right such decisions are hard given their consequences,” he added.
Georgia gives a different narrative for the outbreak of the war, saying that it acted in self-defence in launching the assault on South Ossetia as the country was facing a large-scale Russian invasion. — AFP