NYT: Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question

Georgian forces fired rockets at South Ossetia in August.

By C. J. CHIVERS and ELLEN BARRY
Published: November 6, 2008

TBILISI, Georgia — 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.

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.
The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia’s insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.

Full Text >>>


Times Topics
Conflict in Georgia
Complete coverage of the military conflict between Russia and Georgia.
Blog: Analysis of the Regional Tensions
More Topics: South Ossetia Abkhazia

Related
Georgia Fired More Cluster Bombs Than Thought, Killing Civilians, Report Finds
(November 6, 2008)

C.J. Chivers reported from Tbilisi, Georgia, and Ellen Barry from Moscow. Olesya Vartanyan contributed reporting from Tbilisi, and Matt Siegel from Tskhinvali, Georgia.