Mamuka Mdinaradze, Georgia’s Minister of Regional Development, stated that the 2008 Russian invasion of the country occurred on August 8, rather than August 7, as representatives of the opposition and the civil sector maintain. Previously, government officials placed responsibility for unleashing the war not on Russia, but on the “criminal Saakashvili regime.”
“The Russo-Georgian War began on August 8, 2008. It lasted five days and ended on August 12. Accordingly, the Russo-Georgian War took place from August 8 to August 12, 2008. Everyone referred to it in precisely this way. All documentary evidence also indicates that Russia’s regular army invaded Georgia on August 8, 2008, attacked our country, occupied territories, and engaged in hostile activities. It also committed war crimes, which the Georgian authorities at the time blamed on Georgian military personnel.
As for August 7: on August 7, Mikheil Saakashvili issued an order, and under his command, bombardments were carried out targeting Tskhinvali, which, in my view, he intentionally displayed to the entire world. This is a factual reality. On August 7, he carried out bombardments toward Tskhinvali that were broadcast live on television, thereby creating direct evidence against himself,” Mdinaradze stated.
At the same time, according to the minister, “no pretext or reason justifies Russia’s invasion of Georgia.” Russia, he added, had absolutely no right to invade.
When asked by journalists what Moscow was doing in early August 2008, Mdinaradze responded that “from August 1 to 7, an escalation was underway, for which Russia is also to blame.”
“Yes, there was shelling; yes, there were casualties, including on August 5, and on the 6th, two people were killed. Despite this, no one even requested a UN Security Council meeting or took any action to justify their country. Instead, he [Saakashvili] launched a massive bombardment without a single piece of evidence proving the presence of the regular Russian army in Georgia. Now they claim this verbally, but these words are recorded nowhere.”
The assertion that the 2008 war began on August 8 is one of the central narratives of Kremlin propaganda. Moscow refers to its involvement in the conflict as a “peace enforcement operation,” claiming it was forced to intervene to halt the genocide of the Ossetian population.
However, the opposition, Georgia’s Western partners, and several international organizations insist that as early as the morning of August 7, regular Russian troops crossed the border into Georgia via the Roki Tunnel and invaded its territory. This serves as the primary argument that Russia initiated the war against Georgia.