The Kremlin has always denied that Russian troops entered South Ossetia before the
war. However, despite these denials there are many indications to the contrary that
cast doubt on the Kremlin’s official version and vindicate the Georgian version. On
August 7, for instance, one day before the war started, the Abkhaz separatist leader
Sergey Bagapsh appeared on the Russian TV channel Rossiya, declaring: “I have spoken to the President of South Ossetia. It [the situation]
has more or less stabilized now. A battalion from the North Caucasus District has
entered the area.”[17] This declaration, confirming the presence of Russian troops in South Ossetia before
the war, was not the only one. On August 15, 2008, the regional Russian paper Permskie Novosti published an article with the title “Soldiers from Perm Were in the Epicentre of the
War.” In this article is reproduced a telephone call by a soldier of the 58th Army,
which had invaded Georgia. The soldier told his parents: “We have been there [in South
Ossetia] since August 7. Yeah, our whole 58th Army.”[18] In the article was also mentioned that on August 7 the mobile phones of the soldiers
were “muted.”[19] Another indication of the early entry of Russian troops into South Ossetia could
be found in an article in Krasnaya Zvezda (The Red Star), the paper of the Russian army, published on September 11, 2008. In
this article army Captain Denis Sidristiy, who received the Order for Courage for
his personal heroism during the war, gave the following account of the events: “We
were on exercise [Kavkaz-2008]. Relatively not far from the capital of South Ossetia.
. . . After the planned exercises we remained in the camp, but on August 7 came the
order to go to Tskhinvali.”[20] Sidristiy confirmed that he witnessed during the night of August 7 to 8 the shelling
of Tskhinvali by the Georgian army, which would only have been possible after crossing
the high Caucasus mountains and when he was already inside South Ossetia. When the article was cited by other media,[21] the interview disappeared suddenly from the website to reappear again with editorial
changes that specified the times of the day. The order to march to South Ossetia came
now “on 7 August in the night” and captain Sidristiy saw the shelling of Tskhinvali
“on 8 August in the morning.”[22] However, these sudden changes to the captain’s memory might have been too blatant:
soon afterward the editor of the Krasnaya Zvezda decided to remove the article altogether.[23]
Notes
1.
Wesley K. Clark and Peter L. Levin, “Securing the Information Highway: How to Enhance
the United States’ Electronic Defenses,” Foreign Affairs 88, no. 6, (November/December 2009), 3.
2.
Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, 21.
3.
Valentina Pop, “Saakashvili Saved Georgia from Coup, Former Putin Aide Says,” interview
with Andrey Illarionov, EU Observer (October 14, 2008).
4.
Quoted in Illarionov, “The Russian Leadership’s Preparations for War, 1999–2008,”
83.
5.
“Tskhinvalskiy Pul Spiskom,” December 4, 2008. This list gives thirty-one names. http://davnym-davno.livejournal.com/6488.html.
6.
“Donskie kazaki gotovy vstat na zashchitu naroda Yuzhnoy Osetii ot gruzinskoy agressii,”
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, August 6, 2008. http://www.ng.ru/regions/2008-08-06/1_kazaki.html.
7.
“Donskie kazaki gotovy vstat na zashchitu naroda Yuzhnoy Osetii ot gruzinskoy agressii.”
8.
