15 years ago today, Russia launched a war against Georgia. As a result of the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, Georgia lost 170 employees of the Georgian Ministry of Defense, 14 employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and 228 civilians. The total number of wounded and injured civilians and military personnel was 2,232.
As a result of the ethnic cleansing carried out by Russia and its proxies in the Tskhinvali region, more than 30,000 people were forced to leave their homes. The vast majority of their houses were burned down by the perpetrators to prevent them from ever returning home.
Months before the outbreak of the war as well as during the hostilities, Russia employed a wide range of hybrid warfare tactics, such as information operations, energy, economic and trade blackmail, cyber-attacks, “passportizaion” of the population in the occupied territories, etc.
Both Dmitry Medvedev, then President of the Russian Federation, and Vladimir Putin, then Prime Minister, later admitted that the Russian government had planned the invasion in late 2006 to prevent Georgia’s integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions.
Shortly after the August war, Russia recognised the independence of two regions of Georgia – Abkhazia and so-called ‘South Ossetia’ – and continues to seek, albeit unsuccessfully, recognition of their ‘independence’ by other states.
To date, more than 20% of Georgia’s territory is still occupied by the Russian Federation. To this day Russia has not implemented 6-point cease-fire agreement, brokered by the European Union. Moreover, the occupation regime continues to move the occupation line (the so-called borderization process) within the Georgian government-controlled territory, to divide communities with barbed wire and to militarize the occupation regime. Local civilians are frequently illegally detained and abducted.
The Georgian population remaining in the occupied territories is subjected to grave human rights violations on everyday basis and is denied the most basic human rights – freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom to be educated in their native language, etc. To this day, Georgia demands that their rights be protected and that they be allowed to return to their homes in safety and dignity.
Emboldened by impunity, in February 2022 Russia attacked another neighbor, launching a major war with Ukraine, using largely the same combination of hybrid and conventional warfare tactics.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)
