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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Medvedev reveals details of 2008 attack on Georgian troops
2024-11-02
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The decision to strike Georgian troops in August 2008, when they attacked South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers, was made only after this information was confirmed. This was stated on November 1 by the deputy head of the Russian Security Council, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

He noted that by that time Moscow had expected aggressive actions from Georgia, whose president was then Mikhail Saakashvili, but the outbreak of war on the opening day of the Olympic Games was a surprise. After receiving information about this, Medvedev ordered the then Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to check it.

"After some time there was another call, he (Serdyukov. - Ed. IA Regnum ) said that they were really trying to attack and even hit our peacekeepers. I had to give the order to launch a retaliatory strike, and a missile strike, on the Georgian troops," Medvedev told the RT television channel.

He recalled that after that there was a five-day war and Georgia lost relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. According to him, before the attack on South Ossetia, Saakashvili secured support from the United States.

Medvedev said that Western politicians called Russia's intervention in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict an invasion of Georgia, but in private conversations they admitted that this was not the case.

"They whispered in my ear: 'No, of course, we understand, he (Saakashvili. - Note from Regnum News Agency ) is crazy, he is sick, which means he did all this in vain. But, excuse me, we will not talk about this publicly,'" Medvedev said.

As reported by the Regnum news agency, in September 2024, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze admitted Saakashvili's guilt in unleashing the war with South Ossetia. The head of government named external forces as the customers of the conflict. He also stated that the former president's associates are again trying to unleash a war in the country.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, said in October that a senior Western official had suggested to former Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili that he start a war with Russia. In response to the fact that the Georgian army would be defeated in a few days, the Western representative suggested resorting to guerrilla warfare.

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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Ibragim Mankiev's verdict stood in the court of appeal
2023-03-31
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] The Court of Appeal upheld the verdict of Ibragim Mankiev, a resident of Ingushetia, sentenced to 14 years in prison in a case of banditry, murder and illegal possession of weapons. Mankiev's relatives have previously stated that he was tortured, and the case itself attracted the attention of human rights activists. 

As the "Caucasian Knot" reported, on October 27, 2022, it became known that the Supreme Court of North Ossetia sentenced Ibragim Mankiev, a resident of Ingushetia, to 14 years in prison, finding him guilty of banditry, murders and illegal possession of weapons. Human rights activists drew attention to the persecution of Mankiev after information about his abduction and torture in Egypt.

On November 25, 2009, Egyptian human rights activists stated that, according to their information, Russian citizen Ibragim Mankiev, who is imprisoned by the State Security Agency of the Arab Republic of Egypt,  was subjected to torture .

The Court of Appeal ruled on the Mankiev case on February 21, but it became known only today.

The Third Court of Appeal in Sochi upheld the verdict in the case of Ibragim Mankiev, Fortanga reported today.

Mankiev's lawyer stated in his appeal that the court's verdict was excessively harsh. He also noted significant violations of the criminal procedure law. The defense pointed out that the acting department for combating organized crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia had earlier noted in his letter that Mankiev was not a member of the gang. But the Supreme Court of North Ossetia refused to add this letter to the case as evidence, reported Kavkaz. Realii*.

According to investigators, in 2005-2006, Ibragim Mankiev was one of the leaders of a militant group operating in Ingushetia and North Ossetia.
That would be the Caucasian Front, which subsequently became part of the Al Qaeda-aligned Caucasus Emirate...
The investigation believes that members of this gang are involved in the murders of police officers.

Security officials believe that in order to avoid responsibility, Mankiev left for Egypt in 2006, after which he was put on the international wanted list. In January 2022, he was detained in Nazran.

No comments were received from Ibragim Mankiev or his representatives.

Recall that in November 2009, Ibragim Mankiev's brother Moussa announced his abduction in Alexandria (Egypt). In December of the same year, Ibragim Mankiyev's wife wrote a letter to Mikhail Saakashvili , who was then president of Georgia, with a request to "protect" her husband. According to her, the persecution of Ibragim is due to the fact that he was an imam in one of the mosques in North Ossetia.
Related:
Caucasian Front: 2006-01-30 Basayev and the Russian Orthodoxy
Caucasian Front: 2006-01-18 Nalchik raid leader gloats to Kavkaz
Caucasian Front: 2006-01-18 Basayev plans to cross the Volga
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Russian intelligence: Ukrainian activities similar to Georgia in 2008
2021-11-25
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[RusOnline] It cost Georgia dearly in 2008: Russian intelligence accused Ukraine of preparing for war. Russia again refutes the statements of the West and Kiev about active preparations for an "invasion" of Ukraine. This time, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) made a statement.

In the SVR, reports about the preparation of an "invasion" were called a lie. Moreover, in response to these allegations, intelligence accused Ukraine itself of concentrating its troops on the border with Russia and Belarus.

The SVR bureau report draws a parallel between the current situation in Ukraine and the events in Georgia in August 2008, when Georgian troops launched an offensive against South Ossetia.

"The provocative policy of the United States and the European Union, which deliberately strengthens Kiev's sense of permissiveness and impunity, is of utmost concern. We observed a similar situation in Georgia on the eve of the 2008 events. Then Mikhail Saakashvili "broke off the chain" and tried to destroy the Russian peacekeepers and the civilian population of South Ossetia. It cost him dearly,"the intelligence agency said in a statement.

As previously reported, the US intelligence and media are actively spreading statements about the alleged plans of Russia to attack Ukraine. At the same time, it is reported that the attack is being prepared from three sides at once, and even approximate dates are called. In Russia, they saw this as signs of impending provocations by the Kiev military, saboteurs and neo-Nazi groups. In particular, this was stated on the eve of the Deputy Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Alexander Grebyonkin, and today the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry Sergei Lavrov.

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Afghanistan
Three Georgian soldiers killed in Afghanistan
2012-02-23
TBILISI: Georgia’s government says three of its servicemen have been killed in Afghanistan.

The Defence Ministry said on Wednesday the soldiers died when their vehicle was blown up by Taliban in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province while serving with NATO forces. It didn’t say when the attack occurred.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who visited Georgian troops in Afghanistan earlier this week, praised the three soldiers’ courage and said their deaths are a “heavy blow”.

The deaths raised to 15 the number of Georgian soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan since the ex-Soviet nation, a devoted US ally, first sent troops to Afghanistan in 2009. Georgia now has about 900 troops there. Previously, Georgia contributed soldiers to the US-led war in Iraq and to Kosovo.
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Hoax news report on Russia invasion panics Georgia
2010-03-15
Must be sweeps month...
TBILISI, Georgia – Georgians have been panicked by a hoax television news program announcing the Russian army had invaded and killed President Mikhail Saakashvili.
Yvgeny, get those Imedi bastards on the phone, RIGHT NOW!
Working on it as we speak, Mr. President...
Honey, are you dead?
No, dammit!!
Russia and Georgia fought a brief but bloody war in 2008, a conflict still fresh in the minds of Georgians who have since seen two de facto independent provinces erect firm borders.

The private television station Imedi — Georgia's No. 3 channel — showed the faux report Saturday night.
Igor, we're number three in the ratings. What are we gonna do?
I've got a great idea, sir...
A few media outlets picked up on the story, and the channel ran a ticker during a subsequent entertainment show stating the report "did not correspond with reality." There was no explanation.
Here's one for ya. Pha pha phooey...
Tbilisi resident Gocha Khachiuri, 43, said he had to take heart pills after hearing the news.
Maybe the heart pill people sponsored it...
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
US backs Georgia's Nato ambitions
2009-07-24
The US "fully" backs Georgia's hopes of joining Nato, US Vice-President Joe Biden has told the country's parliament on a visit to the capital, Tbilisi.
But it's Joe so who knows ...
Mr Biden is addressing fears in Georgia that the US might sideline its ally in favour of improved ties with Russia. In a speech to Georgian MPs, he insisted that was not the case and declared: "We will stand with you."

However, Mr Biden also said that the former Soviet republic had to do "much more" to deepen its democracy. The Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili, set out a reform plan only days before Mr Biden's arrival, but the US visitor said reforms had to be followed through.

Mr Biden's speech, which lasted a little longer than 30 minutes, received rapturous applause from gathered members of parliament.
Keep applauding and maybe he'll stay ...
The vice-president said the US continued to regard the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as part of Georgia, despite their unilateral declarations of independence, which have been supported by Russia. "We will not recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states and we urge the world not to recognise them as independent states," he said.

With the anniversary of last August's conflict between Russian and Georgia over South Ossetia approaching, Moscow has accused the Georgian government of rearming and of planning "provocative" actions.

Georgia and other countries say Russia has not met the terms of the pact that ended the war, which required that it withdraw its troops to pre-conflict positions. Instead, Russia has built up its presence in the breakaway regions. Mr Biden told parliament: "We call upon Russia to honour its international commitment, clearly specified in the 12 April ceasefire agreement, including the withdrawal of all forces to their pre-conflict positions and ultimately out of your territorial area."

The BBC's Tom Esslemont in Tbilisi says Mr Saakashvili is keen to capitalise on every bit of American support he can get, especially with vocal domestic opposition over his handling of the war and alleged democratic shortfalls.

Nato has promised eventual membership to Ukraine and Georgia, but has not given either a potential entry date. The war last year convinced some Nato states that Georgia was too insecure to join the alliance yet, analysts say.

It had been reported that Georgia would ask the US to join patrols along its de facto borders with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are currently carried out just by EU monitors, after the UN and OSCE closed down their monitoring missions at Russia's insistence.

Mr Biden said: "We support the expansion of international monitors throughout Georgia to promote peace and stability," though he did not explicitly say the US would contribute. And he added a warning that there was no "military option" to restore Georgia's territorial integrity.

Meanwhile, the European Union has agreed to extend the EU monitoring mission in Georgia for another year, an EU diplomat was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Saakashvili-opposition meeting dead-end
2009-05-12
The political turmoil deepens in Georgia as a meeting between the opposition and the president fails to bear fruit with the former refusing a proposed power-sharing deal. President Mikhail Saakashvili offered to share power with his most outspoken opponents on Monday. The opposition, however, insisted that the president should step down, vowing to intensify the protests that have resulted in thousands demonstrating outside government buildings, occasionally clashing with police over the past month.

Opponents accuse US-backed Saakashvili of having mishandled the five-day war with Russia in August 2008 and of having become increasingly autocratic since coming to power in 2003. The Caucasus conflict resulted in the independence of two of Georgia's provinces - South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"We will keep on fighting for Saakashvili to resign, for the freedom of the press, and for the protection of all our citizens," said Irakli Alasania, an opposition figure who attended the meeting with Saakashvili.

Opposition leaders did not say whether they would hold another round of talks with the president. However, they said that they would expand the mass protests throughout the country.

"From today, we have the legitimate right to hold public protests that are larger, more urgent and take them all across Georgia," said Levan Gachechiladze, another opposition politician.

On Wednesday, the protests turned violent for the first time since the beginning of the demonstrations. The number of protesters has dwindled since a peak of some 60,000 in the first days after demonstrations began on April 9.
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Georgia says it halts army mutiny; all is calm
2009-05-05
No, the other Georgia...
TBILISI, Georgia – Georgia said it had ended a brief mutiny Tuesday at a military base near the capital and thwarted a plan to disrupt NATO exercises.

The Interior Ministry first announced that the mutiny was part of a Russia-supported plot to overthrow the government, and that the suspected organizers had been arrested the night before. But the ministry later backed off and said the plotters were intent mainly on disrupting NATO military exercises set to begin Wednesday in Georgia.

The several hundred soldiers at the base handed over their weapons and surrendered after speaking to President Mikhail Saakashvili, who suggested that force could be used against them if they refused to give themselves up to police, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

Saakashvili said in a televised address that the mutiny was an isolated case and the situation in the country was fully under control. "The plan was to have military riots at different places all over Georgia," Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said. "To make sure that at the minimum the NATO training will not happen and at the maximum there is a full-scale military riot in the country."

Russia's NATO envoy Dmitri Rogozin was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying the allegations of Russian involvement were "crazy."
Crazy talk, I tells ya! Crazy talk!!
Russia's Foreign Ministry said the Georgian government was engaged in its "latest anti-Russian prank." The ministry statement said, "Russia in principal does not interfere in the internal affairs of Georgia."
Except when they, I dunno, invade it?
An official in Saakashvili's office said the intent of the mutineers seemed to be limited to disrupting the upcoming NATO exercises. There was no evidence, he said, that they planned a coup attempt. Neither is there any evidence of Russian involvement. He spoke on condition he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

Russia, which fought a brief war with Georgia last year, has sharply criticized the exercises, which it said would encourage Saakashvili to rebuild its devastated army. The Georgian president has been the target of more than three weeks of street protests by opposition demonstrators demanding he resign. His government has accused Russians of supporting the opposition.

The official in Saakashvili's office said the mutiny was inspired by a small group of disgruntled officers who were involved in a similar action at the same base in 2001.
So why are they still around?
Opposition leaders said the reports of the planned coup were made up; some called it a "virtual coup" and a "staged play." "It's nothing but a tall tale, and we've heard so many of them already," said Georgy Khaindrava, a former Saakashvili ally. "Saakashvili could not make up anything smarter."

Utiashvili, the Interior Ministry spokesman, had said the suspected coup plot was organized by a former special forces commander, Georgy Gvaladze. Gvaladze and another former military commander have been arrested, and other suspects were still being sought, he said. He also had said the ministry has a video of Gvaladze talking to his supporters about the planned coup, and that he is shown saying that 5,000 Russian troops will come to support the coup, and that it was planned for Thursday.

A ministry statement released later said Gvaladze was accused of organizing the military mutiny.

Defense Minister David Sikharulidze said earlier that he had been blocked from entering the military base in Mukhrovani, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Tbilisi, the capital. The base's tank battalion of about 500 army personnel had announced that they would refuse to follow orders, he said. Among the mutineers were civilians who had no relation to the battalion, he said.

The soldiers from Mukhrovani were bused to another base, where they were to be questioned.

The NATO exercises, which continue through June 1, were originally planned to include about 1,300 personnel from 19 NATO and partner nations.

But some former Soviet republics have recently decided not to take part. Among the countries to back out was Armenia, which is dependent on Russia for its economic survival. Four other former Soviet republics — Estonia, Latvia, Kazakhstan and Moldova — and Serbia also had decided to pull out, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported Tuesday.
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Rally demands Georgian president’s resignation
2009-03-16
TBILISI, Georgia - More than 2,500 demonstrators marched through the Georgian capital on Sunday calling for President Mikhail Saakashvili’s resignation. Lawyers, journalists, teachers, doctors and others gathered in downtown Tbilisi to denounce what they called Saakashvili’s repressive rule, chanting “Saakashvili, go away!”

While Georgians rallied around their leader against Russia during last August’s war, many blame Saakashvili for authoritarian trends and accuse him of botching the war. “He lost our territories,” Nukri Kantaria, a teacher, said at the rally. “If he doesn’t leave, we will lose more territories.”

Most of Saakashvili’s opponents share his pro-Western stance, but some say he has hurt the country’s interests by failing to forge normal relations with Russia.
Hard to have 'normal' relations with a country that wants to gobble you up ...
Georgia’s opposition parties are preparing to launch a wave of street protests to force Saakashvili out if he doesn’t step down voluntarily by April 9. Saakashvili has rejected opposition demands and said he would serve through the end of his term in 2013.
Apparently the concept of accepting the results of an election is a rather .. flexible .. one in these parts of the world ...
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Georgia fired first shot, say UK monitors
2008-11-09
Two former British military officers are expected to give crucial evidence against Georgia when an international inquiry is convened to establish who started the country's bloody five-day war with Russia in August.

Ryan Grist, a former British Army captain, and Stephen Young, a former RAF wing commander, are said to have concluded that, before the Russian bombardment began, Georgian rockets and artillery were hitting civilian areas in the breakaway region of South Ossetia every 15 or 20 seconds. Their accounts seem likely to undermine the American-backed claims of President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia that his little country was the innocent victim of Russian aggression and acted solely in self-defence.

During the war both Grist and Young were senior figures in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The organisation had deployed teams of unarmed monitors to try to reduce tension over South Ossetia, which had split from Georgia in a separatist struggle in the early 1990s with Russia's support.

On the night war broke out, Grist was the senior OSCE official in Georgia. He was in charge of unarmed monitors who became trapped by the fighting. Based on their observations, Grist briefed European Union diplomats in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, with his assessment of the conflict.

Grist, who resigned from the OSCE shortly afterwards, has told The New York Times it was Georgia that launched the first military strikes against Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital. "It was clear to me that the [Georgian] attack was completely indiscriminate and disproportionate to any, if indeed there had been any, provocation," he said. "The attack was clearly, in my mind, an indiscriminate attack on the town, as a town."

Last month Young gave a similar briefing to visiting military attachés, in which he reportedly supported the monitors' assessment that there had been little or no shelling of Georgian villages on the night Saakashvili's troops mounted an onslaught on Tskhinvali in which scores of civilians and Russian peacekeepers died. "If there had been heavy shelling in areas that Georgia claimed were shelled, then our people would have heard it, and they didn't," Young reportedly said. "They heard only occasional small-arms fire."

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister who helped broker the ceasefire that ended the war and has been a fierce critic of the Russian invasion of Georgia, is tomorrow due to announce a commission of inquiry into the conflict at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

The inquiry will be chaired by a Swiss expert as a mark of independence and will try to establish who was to blame for the conflict. European and OSCE sources say it is likely to seek evidence from the two former British officers.

The inquiry comes as the EU softens its hardline position towards Russia amid mounting European scepticism about Saakashvili's judgment.
And that's why this news is coming out now.
Europe is preparing to resume negotiations with Moscow this month on a new partnership and cooperation agreement, which it froze when Russia invaded Georgia, routed its army and recognised the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway region.

Although Grist and Young know only part of the picture, their evidence appears to support Russia's claim that the Georgian attack was well underway by the time their troops and armour crossed the border in a huge counter-strike.

Georgia attacked South Ossetia on the night of August 7-8. In the afternoon an OSCE patrol had seen Georgian artillery and Grad rocket launchers massing just outside the enclave. At 6pm the monitors were told of suspected Georgian shelling of a village.

Georgia declared a unilateral ceasefire. But at 11pm it announced that Georgian villages were being shelled and began a military operation to "restore constitutional order" in South Ossetia. Soon afterwards the Georgian bombardment of Tskhinvali began. By 12.35am the OSCE monitors had recorded more than 100 rockets or shells exploding in Tskhinvali.

Russia sent in troops and armour, saying they were there to protect its peacekeepers and the civilian population. The invasion attracted worldwide condemnation and led to a deterioration in relations between Moscow and the West. Many western leaders depicted Russia as an expansionist giant determined to crush its tiny neighbour. They rallied to Georgia's defence amid calls for it to be rapidly admitted to Nato, Saakashvili's most fervent wish.

The president argued that Russia had attacked Georgia because "we want to be free" and that his country was fighting a defensive war.

Critical to his argument was his claim that he had ordered the Georgian army to attack South Ossetia in self-defence after mobile telephone intercepts from the Russian border revealed that Russian army vehicles were entering Georgian territory through the Roki tunnel. "We wanted to stop the Russian troops before they could reach Georgian villages," Saakashvili said. "When our tanks moved toward Tskhinvali, the Russians bombed the city. They were the ones -- not us -- who reduced it to rubble."

Russia counters that the war began at 11.30pm, when Saakashvili ordered an attack, well before any Russian combat troops and armour crossed the border through the tunnel.
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Georgians rally against president
2008-11-07
Thousands of opposition activists have demonstrated in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi - their first major protest since the conflict with Russia. Critics have accused President Mikhail Saakashvili of starting a war with Russia that Georgia could not win.

"We are starting a new wave of civil confrontation, and we will not give up until new elections are called," opposition leader Kakha Kukava said.

A year ago opposition rallies were broken up by police. Rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon were used in a crackdown that ended days of protests but opened the government up to accusations of heavy-handedness. Following those protests, Mr Saakashvili went on to call snap elections, which he won.

There were about 10,000 protesters at Friday's rally, according to estimates by reporters at the scene. They crowded the steps outside parliament, holding banners and waving flags, calling for democratic reforms. They were fewer than the 30,000 the opposition had hoped for, and fewer than at protests a year ago.

But while these do not pose as much of a threat to the president as the 2007 protests, they do come at critical time, says the BBC's Tom Esslemont in Tbilisi. Mr Saakashvili is facing questions, both at home and abroad, about whether Georgia used indiscriminate force at the outset of the war in August. The president is adamant Georgia was provoked by Russia, and has called for an inquiry.

At least five opposition groups were involved in Friday's protests, though one of the leading parties, the Christian Democrats, did not join in.

Analysts say some Georgians are reluctant to stoke unrest, fearing that will be exploited by Russia.

Earlier this week Mr Saakashvili dismissed his army chief, Zaza Gogava, following a review of the conflict with Russia in August. He said "the enemy" was still at Georgia's door and he had to address "shortcomings" in the military.

The conflict in the region began on 7 August when Georgia tried to retake its breakaway region of South Ossetia by force after a series of lower-level clashes with Russian-backed rebels. Russia launched a counter-attack and the Georgian troops were ejected from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a second breakaway region, days later.

Russian forces remain in the two regions, and Moscow has backed their declarations of independence.
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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Georgia denies 'war crimes' claim
2008-10-29
President Mikhail Saakashvili has denied that Georgia's armed forces committed war crimes during their attack on South Ossetia in August. Evidence obtained by the BBC in the breakaway region suggests Georgia used indiscriminate force, and may have targeted civilians.

Witnesses said tanks had fired on an apartment block, and civilians were shot at as they fled the fighting. UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has raised the issue with Tbilisi. South Ossetia and another region, Abkhazia, broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Georgia's attempt to re-conquer South Ossetia triggered a Russian invasion and the most serious crisis in relations between the Kremlin and the West since the Cold War. The BBC recently undertook the first unrestricted visit to South Ossetia by a foreign news organisation since the conflict.

Marina Kochieva, a doctor in the regional capital Tskhinvali's main hospital, told our reporters that she and three relatives were targeted by a Georgian tank as they were trying to escape by car from the town on the night of 9 August. She said the tank fired on her car and two other vehicles, leading them to crash into a ditch. The firing continued as she and her companions lay on the ground, she added.

Georgy Tadtayev, a 21-year-old dental student, was one of the Ossetian civilians killed during the fighting. His mother, Taya Sitnik, 45, told the BBC he bled to death in her arms on the morning of 9 August after a fragment from a Georgian tank shell hit him in the throat as they were both sheltering from artillery fire in the basement of her block of flats.

Mrs Sitnik said she subsequently saw the tank positioned a few metres from the building, firing shells into every floor. Extensive damage to the five-storey block appeared consistent with her version of events. Mr Saakashvili said: "We strongly deny... accusation of war crimes - but of course, we are very open for any kind of comments, we are very open for any kind of investigation.

"We called indeed for international investigation into [the] conduct of this war, into conditions leading to this war, into circumstances leading to this invasion." He added: "Those areas which were under Georgian control - and they were not Georgian villages, they were basically villages mostly predominantly populated by ethnic Ossetians but they were affiliated with the Georgian government - were 100% destroyed.

"So, you know, there were certainly war crimes committed, certainly not by us."
Mr Miliband - normally a strong supporter of Georgia - told the BBC: "I think the Georgian action was reckless, I think the Russian response was disproportionate and wrong. "And that is the series of events that have landed us where we are. "On my visit to Tbilisi of course I raised at the highest level in Georgia, the questions that have been asked and raised about war crimes and other military actions by the Georgian authorities. "We have acted in this without fear, without favour." The BBC visit also confirmed the systematic destruction of villages inside South Ossetia that were inhabited by ethnic Georgians. Some homes appeared to have been not just burned by Ossetians, but also bulldozed by the territory's Russian-backed authorities.
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