I linked to this previously but Michael Totten’s “The Truth About Russia in Georgia” is the most comprehensive report I’ve seen on the conflict – it’s a must read for anyone who wants to know what really happened – and it deserves much greater prominence than I gave it earlier.
The Truth About Russia in Georgia
By Michael J. Totten, August 26, 2008
TBILISI, GEORGIA – Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.
Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before
Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.