User:Nanobear~enwiki/Battle of Tskhinvali - short version

Early in the morning of August 8, Georgia launched a military offensive, codenamed Operation Clear Field, to surround and capture Tskhinvali.

According to Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies the Georgian objective in the operation was a rapid destruction of the Ossetian armed forces and a lightning capture of the republic's capital city of Tskhinvali before the Russian army could have a chance to intervene.

At 12:15 a.m., General Marat M. Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, reported to the OSCE monitors that his troops had come under fire and that they had casualties. According to a Russian military official, over 10 Russian Peacekeeping force servicemen stationed in Tskhinvali were killed during the attack. The heavy shelling, which included Georgian rockets being fired into South Ossetia left parts of the capital city in ruins, which Russian government sources claimed amounted to genocide. The news of the shelling was extensively covered by Russian media prior to the military reaction that followed, as Russia claimed to have responded in defense of South Ossetians against what they called "a genocide by Georgian forces." Russia claimed civilian casualties may amount up to 2,000 dead in Tskhinvali following the Georgian shelling. The extent of civilian casualties was later disputed in a number of sources, with Human Rights Watch report speaking of only 44 dead in Tskhinvali's city hospital, leveled with the BM-21 "Grad" multiple missile systems during the shelling of the city. The Tskhinvali hospital, HRW reports, was under constant shelling for 18 hours.

South Ossetian militias and Russian soldiers offered resistance to the advancing Georgian troops. In the morning, Georgia announced that it had surrounded Tskhinvali and captured eight South Ossetian villages. At 17:35, in a televised address, Mikheil Saakashvili announces that "Georgia controls Tskhinvali and most South Ossetian villages and regions.". However, at 21:22 the South Ossetian government said it is fully in control of Tskhinvali, but that Georgia is making attempts "to retake the city." According to a report in Der Spiegel, the attacking Georgian troops became bogged down and failed to advance further than Tskhinvali. According to an article in the Washington Post, 1,500 Georgian ground troops had entered the centre of Tskhinvali by 10 a.m. on August 8, but were pushed back three hours later by Russian artillery and air attacks. The BBC has discovered evidence that Georgia may have committed war crimes during its attack and occupation of Tskhinvali, including possible deliberate targeting of civilians. The Human Rights Watch found some evidence of firing being directed into basements, locations which civilians frequently choose as a place of shelter.

According to Georgia, Russian military aircraft violated Georgian airspace around 10 a.m. on 8 August. Starting around 2 a.m., international press agencies began running reports of Russian tanks in the Roki tunnel. According to a senior Russian official, the first Russian combat unit, the First Battalion of the 135th Regiment, was ordered at around dawn of August 8 to move through the Roki Tunnel and reinforce the Russian forces in Tshkinvali. According to him, the unit passed through the tunnel at 2:30 p.m. It reached Tshkinvali at the evening, meeting heavy resistance from Georgian troops. Georgia disputes the account, saying that it was in heavy combat with Russian forces near the tunnel long before dawn of 8 August.

During the evening of August 8, vicious fighting took place in the area of Tskhinvali and in South Ossetia. The fighting in South Ossetian towns and villages was done by the local militia and volunteers, while Russian troops concentrated on engaging larger Georgian army groups. Russia also undertook action to suppress the Georgian artillery and the Russian Air Force launched strikes on Georgia's logistical infrastructure. According to some reports, Russian special units prevented Georgian saboteurs from blowing up the Roki Tunnel, which could have hindered the sending of reinforcements to South Ossetia.

On the early afternoon of August 9 the Russian military stated that Georgian forces had been driven out of Tskhinvali and that the city had been "fully liberated."

Burned Georgian tank in Tskhinvali

After being driven out or pulled back from Tskhinvali, the Georgian units regrouped with armoured reinforcements from Gori. On the later half of August 9, the regrouped Georgian forces reportedly launched a new offensive against Russian and South Ossetian defenders of Tskhinvali, using heavy tube and rocket artillery, while heavy fighting was reportedly underway on the city outskirts with Georgian forces, breaking through the defense and the rebel sources reporting three enemy tanks destroyed. Just before midnight a five-hour artillery onslaught on the city ended, but the fighting with the Georgian infantry in the south of Tskhinvali continued. The South Ossetian forces supposedly complained, that Georgia had not yet provided a peace corridor to evacuate the civilians, who were caught up in crossfire.

By August 10, the joint Russian and South Ossetian forces regained control over the city as the Georgian military withdrew. However, according to the Russians, some Georgian snipers and mobile infantry groups still remained in Tskhinvali. According to the Georgian Defence Minister, the Georgian military tried to push into Tskhinvali three times in all. During the last one, they got a very heavy counter attack which Georgian officials described as "something like hell." In total, the fighting in the Tskhinval area lasted for three days and nights, by the end of which Georgian artillery was either destroyed or had left its positions, from which it could shell the city and Georgian ground troops pulled out of the city.