For example, on weekend night 6 citizens of South Ossetia were killed and 15 were wounded in the zone of Georgian-Ossetian conflict. According to official sources, nine peaceful peasants and one policeman were wounded on Friday in Georgian villages of the Tzhinvali District. The South Ossetian party claimed about six killed and nine wounded persons. In the opinion of the Tzhinvali authorities the firing was provoked by the Georgian side.
The shooting continued on the following days. On Monday night a Georgian sharp shooter kept under fire a South Ossetia militia checkpoint in the south-western outskirts of Tzhinvali. This information was reported by Minister of Interior of South Ossetia Mikhail Mindzayev.
The Minister said: “A sharp shooter kept under fire our checkpoint nightlong. He started his job at 23:00 and fired until the morning. Thank God, there are no casualties on our side.”
Besides, according to the Information and Press Committee of the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia the Georgian side is concentrating troops at the South Ossetian border.
The Committee reports as quoted to the Press-Service of the Ministry of Defense and Emergency Management of the South Ossetia that “the units of the Georgian troops are observed moving at the border of South Ossetia”. The Press-Service reports: “An artillery convoy consisting of one battalion of the D-30 howitzers and two mortar batteries arrived to the Tzhinvali area from Military Base Gori. These units are components of the 4th Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Georgian Defense Ministry”.
According to Vladimir Ivanov, Assistant Commander of the Collective Peacekeeping Force (KPF), during the weekend more than 2,500 people left the zone of Georgian-South Ossetian conflict. V. Ivanov said: “On weekend at the requests of the parties the KPF military observers and OSCE officers escorted convoys that evacuated more than 150 women and children from remote Ossetian villages Muguti, Didmukha and Georgian villages Wanati and Satzheneti. During the two last lays totally more than 2,500 people left the zone of conflict only from the South Ossetian side, and the evacuation from both sides is still in progress”.
Against the background of acute aggravation of the situation in the zone of Georgian-Ossetian conflict the KPF Commander made a decision to put his troops on the Reinforced Alert.
Speaking about the sharp escalation of situation in the border areas and statement of Tbilisi about its readiness to conduct direct talks with Tzhinvali leader of South Ossetia Eduard Kokoity blamed the Georgian side for attempts to discredit the stand of South Ossetia in the eyes of the world community.
Kokoity said: “The Georgian side is making efforts to discredit our stand in the eyes of the world community claiming that it is ready to conduct direct talks with South Ossetia. But it is just a PR-action. While they speak about their readiness for the talks, we see that they are bringing heavy weapons to the border of South Ossetia including multiple launch rocket systems. It shows that Georgia tries to maintain military pressure on us to make us to surrender to the change of the peacekeeping format that excludes North Ossetia and Russia. But we are not the people to surrender. We will not negotiate about anything with anybody without North Ossetia and Russia”.
"South Ossetia first of all relies on its own forces but simultaneously we have got lots of phone calls from North Ossetia and other republics of the North Caucasus about sending their volunteers to us”, he added.
E. Kokoity pointed out: “At the same time there should be no grassroots formations in the Republic of South Ossetia “even if they want to help us very much and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of South Ossetia”.
He claimed: “We want to make this process organized to avoid any grassroots formations in South Ossetia. We understand very well what the war is and what consequences may be for untrained people”.
In spite of a new provocation of the Georgian side, E. Kokoity is ready to sit at the negotiating table with Georgia. "Whatever heavy military strikes we could make, yet the most important is to preserve peace. The Georgian leadership should listen to the voice of reason, and stop going on a leash of those youngling hawks who lead their people to a tragic edge”, he said and pointed out that he means the Georgian president “who never saw the war at close quarters, and who doesn’t know what is the human suffering”.
"These people just saw Western blockbusters and listened to Western instructors. And they throw into action the people who should live, create, build but not destroy”, Kokoity said.
The President of the Republic of South Ossetia also said that the South Ossetian side in case of new firing at Tzhinvali is ready to suppress the Georgian fire positions even if they are located in inhibited settlements.
Kokoity said: “Currently our troops monitor movements of the Georgian units, determine coordinates, in order to defeat all firing-points which have been already detected by the South Ossetian troops including in inhibited settlements located in close vicinity of Tzhinvali in case of a first shot”.
The President of the unrecognized republic pointed out that on Friday night the South Ossetian troops did not fire at the Georgian fire positions located in inhibited settlements.
E. Kokoity warned: “But it is a mean tactics of Georgian commanders to hide behind the backs of peaceful people and fire at Tzhinvali. We will put an end to it and reserve the right to fire at Georgian villages and towns. We have something to respond with. We have the means to inflict a serious damage to everybody who tries to fire at peaceful people of South Ossetia”.
In turn, another unrecognized republic – Abkhazia, which is also considered by Tbilisi its own territory, officially claimed that it suspends the negotiation process due to the escalation of situation in South Ossetia. In particular, Abkhaz Leader Sergey Bagapsh refused to meet with the group of friends of the UN Secretary General on August 15. President Bagapsh said about it on Sunday at an extraordinary meeting of the Abkhazia Security Council.
President of North Ossetia Taimuraz Mamsurov claimed on Sunday that in case of further escalation of the situation North Ossetia is ready to render “civilized” assistance to unrecognized South Ossetia. T. Mamsurov said: “Naturally, brothers will come to help their brother, and this help will be civilized. And we are already rendering it. We will do our best to help our brothers in the south to withstand in this uneasy time”.
Speaking about the situation in the zone of conflict T. Mamsurov claimed: “It was absolutely barbarous in form and brutal in manner to attack a sleeping city, many people were killed, mostly peaceful people. We understand that it is a new event in the chain of developments, which tragic sequence is observed now in Tzhinvali”.
The President of North Ossetia spoke against withdrawal of the Russian peacekeepers and modification of the negotiation format. T. Mamsurov pointed out: “Against the background of rhetoric about democracy and European values it just sounds as paradox that the peacekeepers are not needed. For more than ten years they kept peace and stability, and now they “are not needed”, instead the developments of the day-before-yesterday’s night “are needed” – orgy of brutality and killing of people”.
The Head of North Ossetia urged not to call the developments “the war”. “We are making a mistake here when we use such word as the war. There are barbarous assaults of the Georgian side, which entail human casualties but they should be judged exactly so”.
In this connection the Russian Foreign Ministry made a statement about the need to immediately resume the negotiation process in the Joint Control Commission format and conduct urgent working meetings between representatives of the conflicting parties. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Georgia and South Ossetia to show maximum restraint, and avoid use-of-force scenarios that “would conclusively thwart all hopes of settling the Georgian-Ossetian conflict”.
