thank you- the experience is haunting

The Russian invades Georgia after that free Ossety has been attacked by georgian's troops with the help of US mititary advisers. The facts are the facts ... and we're fed up that Europe is the playground of Nato since 1949 !

Yes, THIS story starts with 8th of August - Russian Invasion. Yes, we, the Georgians, have moved troops into Tskhinvali at night - form 7th to 8th of August. We did not bombed the city. Our troops have answered the heavy bombardments from Ossetian side - from 3rd to 7th of August they attacked Georgian villages and we had to answer to that - since the russian peace keepers didn't stopped Ossetians. Nobody is interested what was happening there before. Unfortunately nobody. BTW - Thanks to Magnum and Thomas for this great compilation.

Amazing photographs Thomas. Regardless of who started it all.... the photographs are powerful and it is always the innocent civilians who suffer. With Alex's photographs the two of you provide very moving bodies of work. Extremely effective MIM piece. One of the best.

Thank you Thomas to see around world real situacion. You have made and now making very big work for Georgia ( also for Caucasus) . I am very glad to meet you . (In Freedom Squer) .

"georgians got fucked" (dworzak) because they tried to fuck osetians it's just a good example of historical justice remember what nato did to yugoslavia, remember idependence of kosovo without shots from tskhinvali (osetia) this essay is just a piece of western anti-russian propaganda you disapointed me very much, dear magnum

I think person who has covered almost all the conflicts in Caucasus for ages (including Chechnya) has clear understanding who started the war and why, thank you Thomas for a an amazing essay, as a Georgian it made me cry.

Since July 31, Russian state television channels have been airing inflammatory stories about Georgian forces firing on South Ossetia’s administrative center Tskhinvali, inflicting civilian casualties and causing a refugee exodus to North Ossetia (Russian TV Channel One, Rossiya TV, NTV, Itar-Tass, July 31-August 3). The allegations are not verified by any independent source nor can they be, given Russia’s exclusion of any meaningful international monitoring in South Ossetia, disabling the OSCE and precluding Georgian air surveillance. Moscow’s propaganda wave closely resembles previous ones in the continuing political warfare against Georgia. For their part, leaders in Tskhinvali threaten to escalate the hostilities deeper inside Georgian territory, using “their own forces,” that is, a proxy war. “We will force [the Georgians] out from the conflict zone ourselves. I state once again that we have the necessary troops and equipment [sil i sredstv] to do this,” the South Ossetian “president” Eduard Kokoity warned (South Ossetian Press and Information Committee, August 3). The Russian-delegated “prime minister” and “security council secretary” of South Ossetia, Yuriy Morozov and Anatoly Barankevich, appeared on Russian television channels with lurid stories that Georgians had killed six South Ossetian civilians and wounded twice as many and that South Ossetian troops had in turn killed 29 Georgian soldiers. They also alleged that Georgians were forcing a mass exodus of children and women from South Ossetia to North Ossetia. These officials also threatened to take the hostilities deeper inside Georgia, with ostensibly South Ossetian forces (South Ossetian Press and Information Committee, Itar-Tass, August 1, 2). North Ossetian leaders, meanwhile, seem unwilling to be dragged into a confrontation and are downplaying the anti-Georgian accusations. North Ossetian President Teymuraz Mansurov and other officials in Vladivkavkaz have not backed up those atrocity stories and have explicitly denied that any refugee exodus was under way (Interfax, July 31, August 1, 2). Moscow has every interest in fostering a brink-of-war atmosphere. Having pressured Georgia heavily in Abkhazia in recent months while allowing a temporary lull in South Ossetia, Russia is now shifting the pressure onto this front. As in previous years, Moscow deems the month of August propitious for staging military incidents in Georgia, while European officials take their vacations. This year, however, may differ from previous ones in that Russian and proxy forces could stage the seasonal clashes both in Abkhazia and in South Ossetia, and possibly with a higher intensity. Russia’s recent moves in Abkhazia had suggested that an incursion into the upper Kodori valley could be expected in mid-August. This remains a distinct possibility and may be accompanied by an incident in South Ossetia, ostensibly “in response” to Georgian “provocations” there, on the “evidence” of Russian state media. Moscow is now forcing Tbilisi to guess which option it is considering using: escalation in both areas, or a main action in one of them and a side show in the other. Apart from the usual goal of military intimidation, Moscow has some novel motives this year to escalate tension to an unprecedented level. First and foremost, it wants to demonstrate that NATO would court danger and risk a breakdown in relations with Russia, if the Alliance approves a membership action plan for Georgia at one of the upcoming NATO meetings (December 2008, April 2009). Germany’s insistence at the April 2008 NATO summit, that the unresolved secessionist conflicts disqualify Georgia from a membership action plan, has emboldened Moscow to demonstrate ever more aggressively that the conflicts are indeed unresolved. Second, by stoking tensions in South Ossetia and anxiety in European institutions, Moscow seeks to force Georgia to return to negotiations in the Joint Control Commission (JCC), which Georgia quit in March of this year. With its grotesquely unbalanced composition (Georgia, Russia, South Ossetia, and Russia’s North Ossetia, plus the OSCE as a passive observer), the JCC had only helped perpetuate the “frozen” conflict, i.e., Moscow-controlled instability.

Not Russia started this war.