In geopolitics, trapping the enemy through temporary "retreats", "sacrifices" and "concessions", giving him the opportunity to "take the bait", is a very common technique. But it is not easy to envy those who were given the role of "victim" or "bait".

 In 1938, for example, the Western "allies" sacrificed Czechoslovakia and the next year Poland to Nazi Germany, which ended up with a disaster in its war against the USSR after such "easy victories". In the end, of course, both Czechoslovakia and Poland regained their statehood and were among the victors. But sensible Czechs and Poles are well aware of the capacity in which they were used (although they tactfully try not to remind their "allies" of this).

14 years after the Russian aggression against Georgia on 8.08.2008, watching how the Russian military machine, inspired by former "easy victories" in the name of support for separatism, is now bogged down in Ukraine, it also comes to mind that history is repeating itself. It is quite possible then that the Kremlin was deliberately "lured into a trap". By sacrificing, alas, Georgia, its citizens and its territorial integrity.

We can be 100% sure that Russia would have never gone for annexation of Crimea or unleashed separatism in Donbas, and ultimately aggression against Ukraine, if the world had reacted adequately against the Kremlin immediately after the invasion of Georgia. If at least sanctions had been imposed to the same extent as after the current aggression against Ukraine. And if the same West had insisted that the Russian Federation withdrew its troops from Georgian territory and did not unilaterally recognize the "independence" of the separatists, there would not have been a war in Ukraine.

No such thing has been done. As a result, the Kremlin saw that the result of the aggression was small casualties, meaningless "condemnation" of the international community on the one hand, and an unprecedented "hurrah patriotic upsurge" on the other. In addition, after August 2008 the Kremlin received an unprecedented level of support for the government from a population conditioned by imperial-chauvinist propaganda, for which, in principle, historical truth was of no importance. Most of them had little idea about the difference between Georgians and Ossetians and Abkhazians and what they had in common.

A Russian average citizen believed that his country was "cool" and "everyone is afraid of it" and stopped paying attention to corruption and dominance of the security services, to trampling of human rights, economic problems and injustice, and much more. An average Russian welcomed the killing of Georgians - representatives of a nation that is very close to Russians both culturally and spiritually. Here, longstanding anti-Georgian propaganda and Georgianophobia, instilled in the Russian Federation by the Armenian lobby, played their part.

In less than six years, the Kremlin "repeated" much of what it had "worked out" during its aggression against Georgia in Crimea and Donbass in 2014. But here it has gone even further.  Instead of recognising the "independence" of the separatist proxies, it was the annexation of Crimea, an internationally recognised territory of Ukraine. And in the separatist war against Ukraine, the Donbass Russians essentially started shooting at their own brothers. But even this, duped by "neo-imperial" propaganda, was received by the Russian average citizen with "a bang". And if there was one thing the Kremlin reproached the authorities for it was "insufficient decisiveness".

The fact that "resoluteness" was needed to "save the population of Donbass", the Russian average man has been treated with propaganda for almost 8 years. And the propagandists of the "oldest nationality" were especially diligent here. After Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan tearfully proclaimed in occupied Donetsk "Russia, Mother, take Donbass home with you", it became obvious that a "big war" between Russia and Ukraine was almost inevitable. And it began in February 2022, using the same excuse that was used in the aggression against Georgia - support for the separatists of the so-called DNR and LNR.

Curiously, the "mediator" and "peacemaker" who actually legitimized the Russian territorial seizures in Georgia in 2008 was France, represented by then President Nicolas Sarkozy. This is not surprising, given that France is the main patron of the "most ancient people", whose lobby led the Russian Federation in its adventures with the support of separatism. Today, France, too, has tried to play a similar role, but it has not yet been given much of a hearing in Kiev.

However, the likelihood remains that Ukraine will be the next country whose territorial integrity will be sacrificed. Ukraine in 2022, like Georgia in 2008, may well be sacrificed for the 'far-reaching' plans of global forces to 'lure' the aggressor into an adventure that only they can see. But it is quite possible that the "trap" will soon "slam" if the Kremlin suffers a shameful defeat in Ukraine, to which it has consistently gone since the aggression against Georgia in 2008.

George Mazniashvili