The tragic 15th anniversary of the Russian aggression against Georgia in August 2008 was aggravated by the tragedy of August 3, 2008 in the Racha Mountains, in the resort of Shovi, where at least 17 people died as a result of a landslide, and 19 are still missing.

According to a report by experts from the National Environmental Agency of the Ministry of Environment and Agriculture of Georgia, the cause of the disaster was the collapse of a rock massif west of the Buba glacier. This collapse, when in motion, collided with the glacier, causing the collapse of a certain part of the glacier that was melting due to warm weather, which in turn led to the overflow of subglacial water.

The resulting flow began to move at high speed down the valley of the Bubistskali River, eroding the slopes. As a result, a landslide formed and hit the Shovi resort. "Predicting the exact timing of the formation of this type of event is almost impossible," the report emphasizes.

However, other experts say it was possible to predict and prevent the Chauvy disaster. But this requires an expensive monitoring system in high mountain and alpine areas, similar to those that exist in other countries with high mountains, glaciers, and areas prone to mudslides and landslides - Austria, Switzerland, etc. This requires funding for equipment for monitoring stations, helicopters and their systematic overflights of areas, research and monitoring of high mountain mudflow-prone areas and glaciers, construction of mudflow protection structures, etc.

Unfortunately, the money that Georgia could have spent on the prevention of natural disasters in the mountainous regions, such as the Shovi disaster, it has had to spend for the last 25 years on overcoming the deepest economic and political negative consequences of separatism, on settling more than 500 thousand refugees from Abkhazia and Samachablo, on building housing for them, on other social payments to the victims of separatism. Not to mention that this instability in the separatist regions has scared away hundreds and hundreds of large foreign investors, and that the separatists simply take "for free" from Georgia about half of the electricity produced at the Inguri hydroelectric power station, without spending a cent on its repair and modernization.

In the current situation, when due to separatism in Georgia, the economic imbalance of Georgia has led to the lack of sufficient funds to build a monitoring system for such dangerous natural phenomena in high mountain areas, it was almost impossible to predict a natural disaster like the one that occurred in Shovi. It was also impossible to neutralize its causes (rockfall in the high mountains and melting glaciers).

But let's move on to the problems and consequences of separatism of another level - direct invasion and aggression against Georgia in August 2008. After all, these problems could have been easily predicted - the war and aggression of the Russian Federation against Georgia in August 2008, and the war and aggression of the same Russian Federation first in 1914 and then in February 2022 against Ukraine. Especially since the cause of these tragedies is known to everyone - separatism.

Aggression "in defense" of separatists allegedly threatened with "genocide" is becoming a kind of "signature pattern" of the Kremlin. And who taught the Kremlin leadership such schemes of unleashing war has long been obvious to all reasonable analysts. They are the ones who were the first to start fomenting separatism and demanding the redrawing of borders in order to "prevent genocide" - Armenian nationalists. It is in the demands of the "Artsakh myatsum", by analogy with which other separatist projects have emerged, that lies the root cause of the tragedies of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2022-2023.

If a rockfall on a melting glacier may or may not happen, then almost any separatism, if it is not stopped and neutralized, leads to war and tragedy. And above all, it leads to the misfortune of all those deceived people who believed the separatists.

Today, those who were at the origin of "Artsakh" separatism - the Armenians of Karabakh - have time to realize their mistakes, to repent, to reconcile with their Azerbaijani neighbors and to start a normal life. Especially since Azerbaijan is ready to generously forgive them, grant them citizenship and allow them to build a full-fledged peaceful life in their region.

Such opportunities do not fall to all people who are infected with separatism and find themselves in the power of separatist figures. For example, the residents of Donbass, who believe in the separatists, today see scorched earth, destroyed cities and towns, endless war, death of relatives and friends.

 Revanchists are pushing the Karabakh Armenians to the same prospect, calling for a new, absolutely hopeless war against Azerbaijan. They are again creating propaganda hysteria about the alleged "threat of genocide of Artsakh Armenians", trying to ignite a new war.

The Armenian "Artsakh" separatists and the Karabakh Armenians who supported them once seduced first the Abkhazians and Ossetians into separatism, and then the inhabitants of the Ukrainian Donbass by the example of these separatist "projects". Let them now at least partially atone for their guilt before these deceived people and show them ways out of the separatist impasse.

The Azerbaijani government offers such a way - reintegration of Karabakh Armenians into Azerbaijan with the rights of its full citizens.  If this reintegration is successful, it will show the way out of the separatist deadlock to the residents of the Georgian Samachablo and Abkhazia, as well as to the residents of the occupied Ukrainian Donbass and Crimea.

Impunity for aggression "in defense" of separatism against Georgia in 2008 has already led to war in Ukraine and will lead to new tragedies if separatism as a phenomenon is not eliminated.

The tragedy of the wars in Samachablo and Abkhazia in the early 1990s and the tragedy of the 2008 war in Georgia and the 2022-23 war in Ukraine were caused by separatism. And the main, initial hotbed of this separatist contagion was in the Armenian-populated areas of Azerbaijani Karabakh.  If this hotbed is not eliminated, it will lead to new wars and new tragedies, first of all for the Karabakh Armenians themselves.

George Mazniashvili