New Questions Arise About Georgia-Russia Conflict

Three months after Georgia and Russia briefly battled—a clash that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili blamed on Russian aggression—the original story about the short summer war is being reconsidered in light of new information from independent sources.

The New York Times:

Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

Georgia moved forces toward the border of the breakaway region of South Ossetia on Aug. 7, at the start of what it called a defensive war with separatists there and with Russian forces.

Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

Read more

AP photo / Musa Sadulayev

Russian tanks roll through South Ossetia in early September.