A letter by H.E. Mr. Gleb A. Ivashentsov, Ambassador of Russia to the Republic of Korea, published in “The Korea Herald” Daily newspaper on December 10, 2008

Ambassadors usually do not comment on statements by presidents of the third countries visiting the countries of their accreditation. Unfortunately, I’m bound to make such a comment in connection with the interview of Polish President Lech Kaczynski published in “The Korea Herald” on December 8, 2008.

Referring to his visit last month with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to the border of South Ossetia, Mr. Kaczynski spoke about “Russians firing at them with their machine guns”, which allegedly convinced Polish President that “they have not complied with the cease-fire agreement”.

I can assume that your correspondent had no time to check up the real facts concerning the so called “Russian firing” at Saakashvili-Kaczynski retinue at the South Ossetian border on November 23 night. For you probably would not be convinced by the statements neither by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense of Russia nor by the authorities of South Ossetia which totally disavowed any connection of the Russian or South Ossetian forces to the episode, I would like to make reference to a statement by the Georgian opposition leader Georgy Khaindrava, surely not of a pro-Russian orientation, who was straight to call the firing “a clownery on behalf of Saakashvili and Kaczynski”. I would also refer to the Head of the Polish Agency of Internal Security (ABW), Krzystof Bondarik, who stated in a formal report, published in the Polish daily “Dzennik” on November 26, that the shots in proximity of the cars of the presidents of Poland and Georgia were staged by the Georgian special services. Mr. Bondarik stressed that he was “shocked by the fact that after the first round of the automatic fire was shot, the Georgian guards did not react at all and Mikhail Saakashvili was smiling”.