The village of Dvani on administrative boundary line with breakaway South Ossetia has seen series of rallies of various groups in recent weeks with participants, who mainly are arriving there from Tbilisi, condemning what they call “creeping occupation” as Russian troops, stationed in the breakaway region, continue installing fences across the administrative border. Some other villages, including Ditsi and Didi Khurvaleti, have also been affected by ‘borderisation’. Locals say this ‘borderisation’ affects their daily livelihood as farmlands and orchards become divided, and in case of three families, their houses fell beyond the dividing fences on the area outside Tbilisi’s control.
Russia and authorities in breakaway region deny that there is a shift of the line deeper into the Georgian-controlled areas and say that “the state border” is marked in line with the Soviet-old administrative borders of the former autonomous district of South Ossetia. The Georgian Foreign Ministry condemned the move as “illegal action of the Russian occupying forces”, which grossly violates international norms. Russian Foreign Ministry says Tbilisi is fanning “propagandistic hysteria”. NATO and U.S. have expressed concern over the borderisation and EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has called on Moscow to remove fences.
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