Relation with Russia is already at its lowest point and it can not get any worse, including by uncovering alleged Russian spy network, President Saakashvili said on November 11.

“Those who are saying that ‘we should not capture spies, because we should not irritate [Russia]’; those who are saying that ‘we should not speak about our dignity, because they [Russia] are being irritated by that’, should understand and should look thoroughly into what is going on around us: absolutely all the post-Soviet republics have problems with them [Russia],” he said while visiting a school in the village of Shamgona at the breakaway Abkhazia’s administrative border.

“The fact that we have most of the problems with them is not a surprising at all, because we are the most independent people among the former [Soviet] republics and on the other hand we have the most beautiful country and their [Russia’s] desire to grab this beauty is natural thing; that’s their instinct – they want to grab access to the sea and this beauty,” he said.

“These [tense relations] are not because they dislike Saakashvili… or our policies; that’s their agenda, they simply say: ‘it should be ours’.”

“When one says that we should not irritate Russia – how can it be further irritated? What else can be damaged in the relations, when we are sitting here in this beautiful school at the occupation line and looking at our occupied lands from this school window?”

“What can be worse than this in relations, when [Russia] is here occupying the best part of your country?.. We are still lectured: ‘do not provoke [Russia]’; they have done all the damage they could have inflicted on us. From this point on, I hope, it will be possible to get things better; although, of course, situation is very difficult today,” he said.

Saakashvili told teachers of the school not to refer to the administrative border line with Abkhazia as “border”.

“This is occupation line. [Russians] want it to be a border… this [border] was born in the differently arranged mind of once KGB major [apparently referring to Russia’s PM Vladimir Putin],” Saakashvili said.