Kremlin chief of staff pledges aid for S. Ossetia, even military

MOSCOW, May 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will continue to assist South Ossetia in all areas, including military assistance if required, the chief of the Russian presidential administration said Thursday.

"Russia has provided and will provide South Ossetia with all necessary economic, political, and, if necessary, military assistance," Sergei Naryshkin told Russia's Vesti TV channel.

Naryshkin said "the cynical aggression of the [Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili regime" had inflicted a great loss upon South Ossetia and Abkhazia, destroying the social and infrastructure.

"Of course, Russia could not have stayed detached. It aided, maybe even saved South Ossetia and the South Ossetian nation from annihilation," the chief of the Kremlin administration said.

"The nation had no other choice but to declare its independence and Russia of course recognized the independence of South Ossetia," Naryshkin said.

Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states after last August's five-day war with Georgia, which launched a military offensive on South Ossetia in an attempt to bring it back under central control.

President Dmitry Medvedev said that the move was "the only way to protect people's lives." Western powers called the decision unacceptable.

The republics split from Georgia in bloody post-Soviet conflicts, and their residents have been Russian passport holders for many years.