A Two-Sided Descent Into Full-Scale War

A Long Preamble

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Russian Military Presence Remains in Georgia

Russian forces showed signs of withdrawal in some areas of Georgia, but announced plans to strengthen their presence in others, two weeks after conflict began on Aug. 8.

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South Ossetia, an area the size of Rhode Island, is dominated by Ossetians, an ethnic group distinct from the country's majority Georgians. The province secured de facto independence from Georgia after a short, vicious war in the early 1990s. The two sides signed a cease-fire, but true peace never set in. The world denied formal recognition to the separatist mini-state, but Russia forged close links with it, providing aid, passports for South Ossetians and a peacekeeping force.

Earlier this year, two distant developments angered Russia. Western countries overrode Russian objections and endorsed independence for Kosovo, the separatist province of Serbia, and the NATO alliance, meeting in Bucharest, the Romanian capital, announced that Georgia might one day become a member, although it put off formal steps toward that goal. In April, Vladimir Putin, then the Russian president, upgraded ties with the separatist governments in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to a semiofficial level. Over the objections of Georgia and NATO, he sent troops into Abkhazia, saying the province feared a Georgian attack.

A Russian fighter plane, violating Georgian airspace, shot down an unmanned Georgian spy plane that had been sent -- despite the cease-fire agreement -- on a surveillance mission, according to U.N. investigators. In July, during a visit to Georgia by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, two Russian warplanes flew into Georgian airspace.

Dmitry Sanakoyev, a South Ossetian leader willing to work with the authorities in Tbilisi, survived an assassination attempt in July.

"In the summer, we witnessed an increasing number of incidents -- explosions, shooting," said a European diplomat, adding that South Ossetia's military "professionalism" was beginning to grow.

South Ossetian leaders declined to attend talks with Georgian leaders in Helsinki, Western diplomats said. The South Ossetians said the Georgian negotiator's title, minister of state for the reintegration of Georgia, was insulting; Temur Yakobashvili, the minister, expressed willingness to change his title to special envoy, but to no avail.

On Aug. 1, an explosion in a small patch of South Ossetia held by the Georgians since the 1990s war wounded five Georgian policemen. Over the next two days, a series of shootings killed six Ossetians and five Georgians, according to figures compiled by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Each side accused the other of initiating artillery attacks and using heavier weapons.

Thursday, Aug. 7

On the morning of Aug. 7, after a night of Ossetian artillery fire, Yakobashvili said, he traveled to Tskhinvali for a meeting with the separatists that the Russians had convened at a Russian peacekeeping base. "Nobody was in the streets -- no cars, no people," he said in a conference call with reporters Aug. 14. "We met the general of the Russian peacekeepers, and he said that the separatists were not answering the phone." Yakobashvili left.

Around 2 p.m. that day, Ossetian artillery fire resumed, targeting Georgian positions in the village of Avnevi in South Ossetia. The barrage continued for several hours. Two Georgian peacekeepers were killed, the first deaths among Georgians in South Ossetia since the 1990s, according to Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze, who spoke in a telephone briefing Aug. 14.

"Where were the Russian peacekeepers when the South Ossetians were shelling the Georgian positions?" said Bryza, the U.S. envoy. ". . . They didn't lift a finger to stop them."

Russian officials say the Georgians fired back during the day; Georgians say they restrained themselves.

But by evening, Kezerashvili said, the Georgian side had had enough.