Foreign Minister of breakaway Abkhazia Sergey Shamba said on August 24 that U.S. Senator Richard Lugar’s statement that Washington “is not in favor of having Russian peacekeepers” in Abkhazia and South Ossetia should not be overestimated, Abkhaz news agency Apsnipress reported.

“This is an opinion of a particular Senator. We, in our turn, can cite a number of opinions from Russian parliamentarians that would be the absolute opposite of those [voiced by the U.S. Senator],” Shamba said.

He said Senator Lugar “is free to speak about everything, but there are documents and procedures [in respect to current peacekeeping operations], and Senator Lugar seems to have no idea about them.”

“Statements of this kind are of a populist nature and there is no need to react to them,” Shamba added.