Posted on October 1, 2009 - by Venik

War in Georgia: Reviewing EU Findings

As some of you may have heard, the international fact-finding mission (IIFFMCG) organized by the EU to investigate the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia has finally released its final . As was expected, most of the blame for starting the war went to Georgia. Russia’s “fault”, according to the investigators, for the most part was limited to what the EU calls a “disproportional use of force” in response to the Georgian aggression.

If you do not feel like reading the entire 900-page report, I would recommend skimming across the twenty-five pages of Chapter 5, “Military Events of 2008″. The first things that struck me as unusual is the amount of third-party sources cited in the IIFFMCG report. These are mostly news agencies and newspapers, including rather dubious sources like the CIA-sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Most of the report looks like something I could have written myself in a few months using nothing but Google as a source of information.

Some of the sources used by IIFFMCG were not only third-party but anonymous as well. On page 205 the report mentions that “four Russian military aircraft entered into Georgian airspace around the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict.” The footnote describing the source of this information reads:

The texts on the “Security-related events in the Georgian-Ossetian zone of conflict” and in some other parts of the Chapter on the “Military Events of 2008” are largely based on the information received from the international organizations present in the region. The IIFFMCG respects their explicit wish not to be quoted.

And so we have unconfirmed information from unnamed “organizations” without a direct quote. Considering that both Russian and Georgian air forces operated some of the same types of aircraft, agents of these unnamed “international organizations” would have had to be equipped with some very advanced electronics to determine which aircraft belonged to which side.

The report points out an escalation of tensions on the Abkhaz-Georgian border in spring of 2008. Georgia’s use of both manned and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft over Abkhazia, according to the report, was a violation of the UN-supported ceasefire agreement.

One reason for this was the intensification of air activities over the conflict zone, including flights over the ceasefire line both by jet fighters and by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In the period of 18 March – 12 May, the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) was able to verify five Georgian reconnaissance UAVs and two jet fighter (the SU-25 type) flights over Abkhaz-controlled territory.

(source: IIFFMCG Report, page 200)

The report mentions that in mid-April UNOMIG investigated Abkhazia’s allegations of a Georgian military buildup near the ceasefire line but found no supporting evidence (see page 201 of the report). It is interesting to note that in May and June of 2008 Jane’s Information Group published several photos and articles showing the Georgian army moving heavy weapons toward the borders with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

IIFFMCG mentions that, while the overall number of Russian peacekeepers along the Georgia-Abkhazia ceasefire line probbly remained below the authorized number (3,000), there were unverified reports that the Russians reinforced their peacekeepers with 10 light artillery pieces. IIFFMCG reports says that these weapons “do not traditionally belong to the inventory of a peacekeeping force”. For the record, it should be mentioned that, even if Russian peacekeepers had light artillery in the Restricted Weapons Zone, this was not a violation of the ceasefire agreement.

Another interesting aspect of the IIFFMCG report is that it seems to concentrate much more on the situation along the Abkhaz-Georgian ceasefire line instead of  the border between Georgia and South Ossetia, where the war begun. According to IIFFMCG, the situation on the South Ossetian border escalated dramatically in early July:

The overall precarious security situation in the zone of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict dramatically deteriorated in early July 2008. On 3 July, explosions in the Ossetian-administered village of Dmenisi killed Nodar Bibilov, leader of the de facto South Ossetian militia.

Once again, it should be noted that this escalation was initiated by the Georgian side in early July after it was reported by Jane’s a month earlier that Georgia started moving heavy weapons toward the South Ossetian border. But in March Abkhazia was reporting a Georgian military buildup on its border in the south. This was also confirmed by the Russian peacekeepers on the ground. However, a UNOMIG investigation a month later showed no signs of such a buildup of forces. This apparent confusion opens up an interesting possibility.

Abkhazia is infinitely more important to Georgia – its economy and security – than South Ossetia. Abkhazia accounts for more than half of Georgia’s Black Sea coastline and port facilities. Abkhazia is a major economic asset, while South Ossetia is an impoverished mountainous enclave. Saakashvili’s election campaign promise was to restore Georgia’s control over the breakaway regions. The emphasis was always on Abkhazia. During the year leading to the August 2008 war, the border between Georgia and Abkhazia was the center of military and diplomatic activity. South Ossetia was a sideshow at best.

The Georgian military might have been planning to attack Abkhazia first and leave South Ossetia for later. While Russia has a border with Abkhazia, the terrain is inaccessible by a large ground military force and the only way Russia could quickly reinforce its peacekeepers was by air. Between 2005 and 2008 Georgia spent a fortune on air defenses. Relative to its GDP, Georgia was spending more on defense than any other country in the world, which by itself was impressive for a country with struggling economy.

Attacking Abkhazia might have been the initial plan and this would explain Georgian military buildup reported by Abkhazia in early March. However, in late March of 2008 Saakashvili visited the US and met with Rice to discuss the situation in Abkhazia:

The President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili met the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The members of the Georgian delegation attended the meeting as well. The main topic discussed by Mikheil Saakashvili and Condoleezza Rice was the situation in the conflict regions of Georgia. The Georgian side officially informed the Secretary of State about the difficult situation in Abkhazia. Condoleezza Rice expressed her certain concern. During the visits held in the United States it became clear that they support the territorial integrity of Georgia and will never concede the destruction of the Georgian borders.

(source: Mikheil Saakashvili met Condoleezza Rice, March 20, 2008, official site of the President of Georgia)

After this meeting Georgian strategy made a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn from Abkhazia to South Ossetia. At the end of March Georgian forces were removed from the border with Abkhazia and sent to the border with South Ossetia. This may be the reason why UNOMIG investigation in April found no evidence of a Georgian military buildup on the Abkhaz border.

It is no secret that the US played a key role in the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia. We also know that hundreds of US military advisers were stationed in Georgia in 2008. The US admitted that it knew in advance about Georgia’s plan to attack South Ossetia. It is also a fact that both OSCE and NATO knew about the exact timing of the planned attack but chose not to warn Russia that had a peacekeeping force deployed on the border between Georgia and South Ossetia. Some fifteen Russian peacekeepers were killed in the first hours of the attack by Georgian forces and more than sixty Russian peacekeepers were killed before the conflict was over.

In my own review of Georgian strategy last year I noted that Georgia’s decision to attack South Ossetia first – before engaging Abkhazia – to block the only road leading to Russia, thus cutting off any possible Russian reinforcements, was not a bad plan. All that stood between the Georgian army and the entrance to the Roki tunnel were lightly armed Russian peacekeepers and Ossetian militia. The Georgians had tanks, heavy artillery, multiple-launch rocket systems, advanced mobile SAM launchers, ground attack jets and helicopter gunships. The Russian peacekeepers had their AKs and a few APCs.

The Georgian army should have been able to reach the tunnel in time to prevent Russia’s 58th Army from crossing into South Ossetia. But the Georgian army failed because it lacked experienced commanders and because the training the Georgians received from the Americans gave them a false sense of readiness.  Still, I always felt that the decision by the Georgian military to strike South Ossetia first and to confront Russia directly was uncharacteristically bold. Such a move takes big balls and Saakashvili is a coward. The IIFFMCG report points to a different possibility.

It is a matter of record that majority of senior officers in the Georgian army’s top command hierarchy were amateurs with little formal military education and virtually no command experience. The few senior officers with background in the Soviet military were pushed back to secondary roles and replaced by characters like Lt. Col. Giga Tatishvili, the second Deputy Chief of General Staff, who had a degree in Business Administration and whose previous job experience included managing a pizza store in Moscow. Tatiashvili’s military education consisted only of a few courses he took at the Joint Special Operations University in Hurlburt Field, FL.

The Georgian public was grossly misinformed about the capabilities of the country’s armed forces. Saakashvili himself from time to time chose to delude himself in this regard. But the top Georgian commanders knew exactly how badly they sucked at their job. Engaging the Russian army head on in South Ossetia would have been the last option on their list of war plans. It seems far more likely that before Saakashvili’s meeting with Rice on March 20, 2008, the Georgian army planned to attack Abkhazia.

Perhaps it were the Americans who realized that the only effective way for Russia to respond to such an attack quickly and with sufficient force would have been to invade from the north through South Ossetia. Thus, blocking the Roki tunnel became the primary objective for the Georgian army. Upon Saakashvili’s return from Washington at the end of March, the Georgian forces started removing most heavy weapons from the border with Abkhazia and moving them toward South Ossetia. The more facts emerge from this war, the more prominently the US role features in the events that led to it.

More from the IIFFMCG report about the situation on August 7 and 8:

After a short break in the morning, firing, involving mortars and artillery, continued on 7 August, reportedly causing human casualties and fatalities. The same day, international observers could see significant movements of Georgian troops and equipment towards Gori from the east and west…

Diplomatic efforts were undertaken on 7 August, involving the Georgian State Minister for Reintegration, Temuri Yakobashvili, the Russian Special Envoy for the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, Ambassador Yuri Popov and the Commander of the JPKF, Major General Marat Kulakhmetov. They aimed to arrange for high-level Georgian-South Ossetian peace talks but did not bring any  positive results. In the afternoon of 7 August, Georgian representatives left the JPKF Headquarters in Tskhinvali…

On 7 August at 23.35 hours Georgian artillery units began firing smoke bombs and, subsequently, at 23.50 hours, opened fire on both fixed and moving targets of the “enemy forces” on the territory of South Ossetia…

In the early morning of 8 August, Georgian troops launched a ground attack against the city of Tskhinvali as well as operations on the left flank of the city (by the 4th Infantry Brigade coming from Vaziani ) and on the right flank (by the 3rd Infantry Brigade coming from Kutaisi). The flank operations seemed to aim, inter alia, at occupying important heights surrounding Tskhinvali and then at moving further northwards to take control of the strategically important Gupta bridge and the roads, including the Ossetian-controlled Dzara by-pass road, leading from the Roki tunnel to Tskhinvali to block movements of the Russian troops from the north.

One key aspect of the IIFFMCG report is that it completely undermines Georgia’s official justification for launching the large-scale attack against South Ossetia on the night of August 7. Saakashvili claimed that the bombardment of Tskhinvali by Georgian artillery, including multiple-launch rocket systems, was a response to the Russian invasion of South Ossetia from the north via the Roki tunnel. The IIFFMCG investigators found no evidence to support this allegation. Russian ground forces moved from their bases in Russia toward the Georgian border at 14:30pm on August 8.

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5. Georgia’s Attack on South Ossetia: Washington’s Role