It as in the early hours of August 7, 2008, that the war in South Ossetia became a certainty. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Georgia and the Russian Federation were in dispute regarding the status of two territories Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both of these In both these territories there was a conflict between the dominant local ethnicity (Abkhaz and Ossetian), and Georgian minorities that sought full absorption into join the Georgian Republic. Within South Ossetia, the 1991-92 war had left the province divided into majority-Ossetian areas and a number of enclaves inhabited by ethnic Georgians. The peace agreement reached in 1992 established a multi-lateral peacekeeping force, with a battalion each from the Russian Federation, North Ossetia, and Georgia.
In 2008, the conflict would be focused on South Ossetia, specifically its capital of Tskhinvali. (For a detailed breakdown of the tit-for-tat escalatory actions between the two sides, click here.) On August 7, the Georgian government had taken the decision to prepare a ground operation to capture the South Ossetian capital and disarm or disperse the militias that had been harrassing its peacekeeping forces and villages under their control. *
The planning process on the Georgian side appears to have been rushed and haphazard (click here for a candid analysis written by a former American advisor), but its general features were straightforward enough. The plan was for a two-stage advance. Two regular Georgian brigades would capture the heights to the west and east of Tskhinvali while, in the center, Tskhinvali itself would be seized by a composite brigade-sized force made up of paramilitary units of various sizes and specializations from the Ministries of Interior and Defense * . Once this objectives were seized, a force would move north along the highway to set up blocking positions either at the Gupta Bridge or even the south end of the Roki Tunnel, thus bottling up any counterattack attempt by the Russians.
Almost all military assets available to the Georgian government were to be committed to the first attack. The basic building block of the active army was the infantry brigade of 3,265 soldiers * . Although on August 2008 Georgia had four of these formations, only three were available for the attack: two were in the first line, while the third was available as a reserve near the border with Abkhazia. The last brigade was on active service with the American coalition forces in Iraq. A sign that the Georgian command was using every available at its disposal was that even a single battalion from an embryonic "5th Brigade" was mobilized and placed in reserve on the right flank. However, Georgia had a powerful force multiplier in the form of its Independent Artillery Brigade, which fielded 18 D-30 towed howitzers, 12 120mm mortars, and, soon to become notorious, 18 BM-21 "Grad" Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), capable of firing 720 122mm rockets in a matter of seconds. (For more in-depth analysis of the background, strengths and weaknesses of the Georgian Army in 2008, click here.)
Within South Ossetia, these forces would be facing an irregular assemblage of militiamen bolstered by small units of peacekeepers from the Russian Federation. The Sochi Agreement of 1992, which had brought to an end the 1991-92 South Ossetia War, provided for the deployment of peacekeepers from North Ossetia and Russia to patrol majority-Ossetian areas. Outside of small checkpoints in outlying villages, the bulk of them were stationed in the capital: The North Ossetians based near the northern peacekepper compound, while the Russian battalion was quartered in the southern building located on the southwestern edge of the city. Accurate numbers for the total number of South Ossetian militias remain uncertain: from a minimum of some 500 "regular" full-time troops to over 3,000 once part-time "reservists" had been mobilized. However numerous, the South Ossetians' organization was essentially localized: "battalions" of some 180 men recruited from the inhabitants of a given village or neighborhood. Although highly motivated to resist a Georgian attack, they lacked heavy equipment * and were organized for territorial defense rather than mobile warfare. While able to give a good account of themselves fighting in a built-up area like Tskhinvali, they were unlikely to have much staying power on the flanks, where the Georgians' advantage in artillery and armor would likely be decisive. The key question would therefore be how quickly could the South Ossetians' expect to receive aid from across the Greater Caucasus mountain range.
The Russian military was large, but so were its commitments, and ever since the fall of the USSR there have been very large large gaps between its paper strength and the actual number of soldiers it could deploy at short notice. The closest source of Russian troops for South Ossetia was the 58th Army under the command of Anatoly Khrulyov, whose area of responsibility included Chechnya and the neighboring republics. Although set-piece battles of the kind that marked the first years of Second Chechen War were a thing of the past, a lethal low-level insurgency had never been entirely suppresssed, with the security forces suffering scores of dead both in 2007 and 2008. Most of this fighting involved either OMON Interior Ministry troops or indigenous Chechen forces loyal to Moscow, but Russian army units stationed in the area were kept at high readiness: not only were they at close to authorized strength (unlike many skeletal cadre formations in the interior), but they had the highest priority for being allocated volunteer professional soldiers, rather making do with the annual conscript levy.
If in Georgia the military "unit of account" was the NATO light infantry brigade, for Russia it was the "Battalion Tactical Group" (BTG). This is a formation that has no direct analogue in the West: it has the infantry strength of only a US/NATO battalion and limited mechanized assets, but enjoys a level of artillery and combat-support * that in NATO countries would accompany a brigade-level formation (for more information on this type of unit, click here). By the evening of the 7th, two of these had been placed on high alert both in on the frontier with South Ossetia and two more further north in its main Chechen garrisons.. A second source of intervention-capable units were the Airborne Troops, which could assemble highly capable rapid-reaction BTGs not only in the Caucasus itself, but also deep in the interior. Thus, the Russian response should not be seen in terms of the mass tank armies of World War 2 or Fulda-Gap Cold War scenarios, but rather a hasty and necessarily ad-hoc assemblage of individual high-readiness units gathered from many separate commands, often across very great distances as well. It remained to be seen therefore whether these units could cohere quickly enough to make their numbers felt: an open question for a military that had shown no great talent for this kind of improvisation during either the First or Second Chechen wars (note)? (For a more detailed discussion of the state of the Russian army at this time, click here for a detailed discussion.)
The opening phase of the war can therefore be understood as a "battle of the buildup" between the main adversaries. The Georgian offensive was front-loaded: almost the entirety of the country's available military force would be committed in the first 48 hours to overwhelm or neutralize all resistance in South Ossetia. Even if the Russian government decided immediately in favor of full conventional military support for the South Ossetian militias and his own embattled peacekeeper battalions (something that was not considered necessarily certain * ), mobilizing units and having them traverse considerably large distances (over 150 miles alone from from Tskhinvali to Grozny) over very rugged terrain might take long enough that, by the time a large enough Russian force was ready to intervene, Georgian forces would have conquered most of the province and stood ready to resist a Russian advance at such ready-made choke points as the Roki Tunnel or the Gupta Bridge. Under these conditions, Russian attempts to reconquer the province could be expected to be slow enough for Georgia's allies in the United States and Europe to arrange a cease-fire that would freeze the conflict with de facto borders that would leave South Ossetia under the direct control of Tbilisi.
Although the question of which side took the first definite military action remains in dispute, what elevated the war from a regional skirmish into an international news story was the Georgian bombardment of Tskhinvali in the early hours of August 8. The barrage was heavy, but relatively short: by AM, Georgian ground forces were already advancing to seize their objectives in and around the city.
The offensive scored early successes on west of Tskhinvali. The village of [Khetagurovo], from which Georgian forces had repeatedly taken fire in the past weeks, fell almost immediately, with Ossetian militia infantry dispersing before the tanks and armored vehicles of the Georgian vanguard. Makeshift Ossetian anti-tank teams attempted to set up a blocking position [half a mile to the east], but they were destroyed in the pre-dawn darkness by Georgian tank gunners using infrared sights. Within the first hours of the attack, Ossetian resistance had collapsed and the way lay open for the Georgian 4th Brigade to seize both [the heights northwest of Tskhinvali] and the critical [Dzara road], the only open route through which reinforcements could reach the Ossetian capital. However, at this point they began to be drawn into the fighting [within Tskhinvali proper], where stubborn resistance by both Russians and Ossetians had begun to seriously upset the Georgian timetable.
The direct assault on the Ossetian capital was entrusted to two [two] battalion-sized units: the [Independent Combined Tank Battalion] and an elite but hastily assembled [grouping] of police and special operation forces under the command of the Ministry of the Interior. Allocating such a relatively limited force to seize an urban area suggests that the Georgian planners did not expect heavy resistance. The defending Ossetian militiamen were numerous, but it might have been expected that, after a heavy bombardment, they would fall back in the face of an armored assault as readily as their comrades to the west. And at first this appeared to be the case. Ossetian units either withdrew to the northern outskirts of the city or dispersed away from the main thoroughfares. Two buildings, however, acted as breakwater, slowing and eventually stalling the advance. The first one the Georgians encountered was the barracks building occupied by the Russian peacekeeper battalion.
Its occupants were not particularly numerous. In August 2008 it was the 2nd() battalion of the 135th Rifle Regiment that was taking its turn in the rotation of Russian units in the peacekeeping forces. Although on paper it had almost 500 men, on this day only 180 were present in the barracks * , and a number of them were not combat infantrymen but support staff such as doctors or logistics specialists. It is doubtful that, on its own, it could have taken any offensive action. It was, however, awkwardly placed from the Georgian point of view. Not only did block the key access node into the city from the southwest, it also had clear lines of sight to roads leading into the city from the west and south, enabling both direct fire and artillery observation even if it was bypassed. As so often in this war, it is unclear who fired first, but by mid-morning the Georgians had clearly decided the peacekeeping battalion was an active threat began to bombard the building with artillery and tank fire. Whatever hostile action the peacekeeper battalion may have taken earlier, by noon it was entirely suppressed, its vehicles flaming wrecks and its soldiers holed up in the basement. Georgian tanks could now bypass it, allowing the advance to resume. By the afternoon Georgian forces had reached deep into the city. But a second building still stood in the way of the complete conquest of Tskhinvali: the northern headquarters of the Russian/Ossetian peacekeeping forces.
By this stage Georgian forces were having serious difficulties coordinating their advance. Tank-infantry cooperation, always a challenge for countries hurriedly transitioning out of peacetime * , was even more difficult as these units had not trained together and belonged to entirely different branches of the military. Radio communications, reliant on a single frequency, had completely broken down, with commanders resorting to calling each other on cell phones or sending messengers. All this resulted in Georgian armored vehicles advancing along the city's main thoroughfares unsupported by infantry, with predictable results: Ossetian RPG-teams moving along side-streets were able repeatedly to fire at the tanks' side- and rear-armor, either knocking them out or panicking the crew into abandoning them. This brought the Georgian advance to a halt. However painful these losses, Georgian forces had been halted, not defeated, and approximately half- to two-thirds of the city had been captured. What turned a stalled advance into a hurried withdrawal that threatened to become a rout was the stream of confused and increasingly panicked reports coming from the west speaking about the destruction of the 4th Infantry Brigade.
This unit had been assigned divergent and arguably over-ambitious initial objectives. One-third of the brigade's strength was directed against the town of Znaur, a peripheral objective lying at right angles to those of the rest of the brigade: the entire [43rd battalion] thus spent the first fighting through small ambushes and delaying actions by Ossetian militiamen.. The 41st battalion was exploiting the scattering of the Ossetian defenders of (Avnevi) until to to forced to countermarch to support its sister battalion, which, redirected early in the morning to support the stalled assault on the Ossetian capital, reported being heavily engaged by Russian forces.
long march Impression of overwhelming Russian forces, the force that intervened on August 8th was limited in strength. Long march. Two echelons.
But it would prove enough
and hastily redirected from its objective and of the 41st battalion 43rd Light Infantry BattalionTesting for zero slide duration
This meant that shortly after noon advance had reached well into the city
20
8th August, tank engagement SW Tskhinvali
8th August, Georgian 4th Infantry Brigade on
The fighting [east of Tskhnivali] was separated into its own battlefield by the [Liakhvi river]. By midday on August 8th, this could have been an advantage for the Georgian side. Ossetian forces were relatively [weak and scattered], unsupported by "peacekeeping" units from the Russian Federation, unable to entrench in urban terrain, and outnumbered at least 2:1 by the [Georgian forces] allocated to the offensive. Even if the Georgian advance stalled everywhere else, success in this area would have had serious results. Capture of the [Prisi heights] would allow a link-up with the network of Georgian-controlled villages [north of Tskhinvali]. The defenders of Tskhinvali would then be surrounded on three sides, with their [supply lines] now under direct observation by Georgian artillery observers.
Georgian Advance West of Tskhinvali ; Tank advance
[click here for more information] In the center, the advance by Interior Ministry troops supported by Army tanks appeared at first unstoppable, [pushing Ossetian militas back] and leading to some news reports that the city had fallen. However, the advanced bogged down. Alaniya battalionRussian intervention.
Vostok
in the West, West , Constitutional battalion start move. Idea attack would extend to Roki tunnel.
4th Battalion units 8th August
FIGHT ALONG PRISI HEIGHTS ON AUGUST 8 testing
$3rd Infantry Battalion on August 8, towards Znaurihere
Georgian Tank Battalion on August 8th
FIGHTING AROUND PEACEKEEPER BASE
Testing multiple points,The Georgian decision to invade South Ossetia came after a [series of shootings].
"Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?"
"Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?"
"Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt.
"Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt.
Recon elements from the [234th] had reached as far as the town of [Kaspi] with no opposition.
Testing AA near Guptas--esting vs studio