The deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council and former president, Dimitri Medvedev, said Monday that for Moscow, Georgia’s Russian-controlled Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) regions are independent states, which is also “well understood” by the Georgian government.

In an interview with the Russian state media TASS, Medvedev suggested that the war in Georgia and Ukraine was a "provocation by the West" and not Russia's military aggression,noting that Ukraine and Georgia “will not be accepted into NATO or the European Union”. 

"As for renewed aggression on the part of Georgia on the territories separated from it - this is impossible. For us, today Abkhazia and South Ossetia are independent states with which we have friendly relations and where our military bases are located. And this is well understood by the current government of Georgia. They will no longer try their luck and will no longer enter into confrontation with such a state as Russia," Medvedev said.

Today, on the 14th anniversary of the 2008 war, Medvedev also said that 2008 was a signal to the US and NATO that in 2022 "they had to give a tougher response."