Georgia-Russia Conflict

Russia has long viewed itself as protecting South Ossetia and Abkhazia in their drive to separate from Georgia. Both republics have close ties to Moscow, which has been angered by U.S.-backed Georgia's bid to join NATO.

In 1989, South Ossetia declared its autonomy from Georgia, then known as the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, setting off three months of fighting. Another conflict began in December 1990 and lasted until 1992, when Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian leaders signed an armistice and Russian troops began patrolling the border. The same year, Abkhazia declared its independence from Georgia, sparking a war that ended in 1994 with a treaty between Russia and Georgia, with Russian troops patrolling that border as
well.


As Russia's flash war with Georgia winds down, two distinct – and contradictory – stories about what happened and why are taking shape.Each side also has some valid points in its defense.

There seems little doubt that the conflict began with a massive military assault, launched overnight by Georgia on Aug. 7-8, apparently aimed at retaking the breakaway republic of South Ossetia before Moscow could react.

Human rights monitors and Western journalists now being admitted to the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali can find little evidence to back up Russian claims that the Georgians committed genocide.

But their reports so far implicate the initial Georgian artillery and rocket bombardment of the city of 10,000 people as causing the massive destruction they're finding, including schools, churches, and the main hospital.

Also crucial, from Moscow's point of view, is that the Georgian attack on Aug. 8 killed 15 Russian peacekeeping troops, stationed there under 1992 peace accords, and injured dozens.

But the causes of the conflict run deep and, like the layers of an onion, the conflict has many different levels.

When the USSR broke up in 1991, Georgia won its independence and was admitted to the United Nations as a sovereign state within its Soviet-era borders. Under international law, therefore, the breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia belong to Georgia. Tbilisi alleges, with considerable evidence, that Russian meddling during the bitter civil wars that followed helped the two statelets win their de facto independence and that Moscow's support has been crucial to keeping them going ever since.

In 2003, the pro-democracy "Rose Revolution" brought Mr. Saakashvili to power on pledges to reunite the country and lead it into the premier Western military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Georgia claims that Russia, which brutally suppressed its own separatist uprising in Chechnya, backed the Ossetian and Abkhazian rebels in order to keep Georgia weak and dependent upon Moscow.

After Saakashvili was elected, Russia began upgrading its relations with the two rebel statelets and issued Russian passports to the majority of its citizens – in preparation, Tbilisi says, for a showdown. It contends that this year, as NATO considered Georgia's application for entry, the Russian 58th Army – which roared into South Ossetia 10 days ago to blunt the Georgian assault – massed provocatively near Georgia's border.