Georgia's NATO showpiece left in tatters

By Niko Mchedlishvili

SENAKI, Georgia (Reuters) - Georgia intended this brand new military base as the showpiece of its drive for NATO membership, but the Russian soldiers who took it over had different ideas.

"Russia is a great power!", one of them had scrawled in a ransacked building before the Russian troops pulled out, leaving behind the blackened shells of T-72 tanks and a runway scarred with craters.

"The damage is huge, but we'll restore everything," Colonel Gaioz Moseshvili said as he drove through the sprawling base, reclaimed on Sunday by Georgian forces.

A roll of explosions last week signalled Russia's intention to tear apart the sprawling base, constructed under a military buildup launched by President Mikheil Saakashvili after his rise to power with the 2003 "Rose Revolution".

Senaki was a signal of Georgia's ambition to leave behind its Soviet past and turn to membership of NATO. Built to alliance specifications, it could house 3,000 soldiers, many trained in NATO-member countries.

A Reuters correspondent who gained access to the base on Monday saw several T-72 tanks, armoured personnel carriers and two helicopters blown apart, metal twisted and blackened.

The fitness gym was empty, running machines and weight-training benches had vanished. Doors and windows were smashed, and computers taken from the training centre. Beds lay upturned in the barracks, mattresses on the dirty floor.

The facilities Russian forces found here would have far surpassed those normal in their own bases.