How the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 Started

Since the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008, the information battle about it has not stopped. After initially getting very negative press concerning their military aggression, the Russians “regrouped” and launched a massive propaganda counter-assault, using their existing networks in the West, particularly in Europe. This propaganda campaign sought to put the blame for the war on Georgia altogether, or at least to blur the difference between the aggressor and the victim in the eyes of the Western audience. In its attempt to blame Georgia, Russia did not stop before promoting obvious lies.

One of these lies was the claim that Georgian military units had started combat actions before the Russian military forces crossed the Georgian border. The facts point to the opposite. Units of Russia’s regular armed forces started flowing into the Tskhinvali region in the first days of August 2008, right after the completion of the large-scale military exercise, Kavkaz 2008, on 2 August.

On 5 August 2008, an intelligence battalion of the 33rd Mountain Infantry Regiment passed through the Roki tunnel and entered Georgia. At that time, 1,200 military servicemen of the Russian army were already deployed in the Tskhinvali region, even though the acceptable limit for the presence of Russian peacekeepers was set at 530, according to the existing agreement on Russia’s peacekeeping mandate. These facts are reported in an international study – The Guns of August 2008: Russia’s War in Georgia. On 6 August 2008, the Russian daily newspaper, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, along with other Russian media outlets, reported that the road on the north side of the Roki tunnel was packed with Russian military trucks and armored vehicles heading for the tunnel. At about 4 a.m. on 7 August, the Interior Ministry of Georgia intercepted telephone conversations of South Ossetian fighters saying that tanks and armored vehicles had entered the Tskhinvali region from Russia via the Roki tunnel. At 5 p.m. on the same day, a Russian TV channel, RTR Planeta, aired a statement of the then leader of Sukhumi regime, Sergei Bagapsh, expressing hope that everything would be fine with Tskhinvali because, as he said, “a battalion of the North Caucasus Military District” had already entered the region.