The Tanks of August

The Tanks of August
Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies

Moscow, Russia
Edited by Ruslan Pukhov
Foreword by David Glantz
Tanki_august_block_zamena_02.indd 1 02.08.2010 11:41:01
UDK 355.4
BBK 66.4(0)

The Tanks of August / M.S. Barabanov, A.V. Lavrov, V.A. Tseluiko; Edited by R.N. Pukhov.
oscow, Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, 2010. 144 pages.
The publication of this collection of essays coincides with the second anniversary of the armed conflict
between Russia and Georgia on August 8-12, 2009.
The first essay looks into the transformation of the Georgian armed forces under President Mikhail
Saakashvili and details Tbilisis key preparations for the war.
The second and central essay offers a detailed timeline of the hostilities. It draws on a wide range of sources,
from official chronicles and statements to recollections of the eyewitnesses on both sides and Internet reports.
The timeline contains detailed descri ptions of all the key combat operations and episodes during the war.
The third essay analyses Georgias efforts to rebuild its military machine since August 2008, as well as the
existing military situation and the balance of power in the region.
The four remaining chapters look into several individual aspects of the Five Day War, including combat
losses on both sides, Russian aviation losses, and the post-war deployment of Russian military bases in
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, now recognized by Moscow as independent states.
The Annex details in chart form Georgia's procurement of heavy arms and military equipment in 2000-2009.
ISBN 978-5-9902320-1-3
The publication of this book
is financed by a donation
from the Russkiy Mir Foundation.
Cover photo: a convoy of Russian tanks in South Ossetia, August 2008,
REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov
Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, 2010
Contents
05 Foreword
09 Georgian Army Reform under Saakashvili Prior to the 2008
Five Day War
37 Timeline of Russian-Georgian Hostilities in August 2008
77 Present and Future of the Georgian-Russian Conflict.
The Military Aspect
99 Russian Air Losses in the Five Day War Against Georgia
107 State of the Georgian Army by the End of Hostilities
115 Post-war Deployment of Russian Forces in Abkhazia
and South Ossetia
129 Russian and Allied Losses
139 Known Deliveries of Military Equipment to Georgia in 2000-2009
142 Russian Armed Forces in Georgia (by the end of August 12, 2008)
143 Georgian Armed Forces (by the end of 12 August, 2008)
144 The Authors
Foreword
This substantive book, an anthology of seven chapters and an appendix, contains
essays dealing in detail with various aspects of the Russo-Georgian War, a
conflict which took place over a period of five days in August 2008. It is the first
comprehensive account published to date about the short, but vicious war between
the Armed Forces of the Republic of Georgia and the Russian Federation. Sharply
conflicting political points of view render the causes, nature, and consequences
of this war innately controversial. Nonetheless, at the very least, the political,
social, and military dimensions of this war vividly illustrate many of the sharp
controversies characterizing the post-Cold War world a world many observers
mistakenly asserted would mark the final triumph of peace over war. Therefore,
together with the on-going and increasingly violent War against Terror, which
pits an especially radical and bellicose form of Islamic Fundamentalism in armed
struggle against fundamental aspects of Western civilization, the Russo-Georgian
War defies the views of those who proclaimed an End to History in the wake of
over forty years of Cold War. In short, the descriptions of war contained in this
book starkly confirm that nations and their governments still act like nations and
governments of old, and man, with all of his inherent flaws, remains man.
Produced by the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST),
a non-governmental organization [NGO] based in Moscow, the six essays
written by members of the NGO provide in-depth analysis of the political, social,
economic, and military context for and causes of the war, the nature of wartime
military operations, the human and materiel costs of the brief struggle, and the
wars likely implications for the future. Because the books authors are based in
Moscow, quite naturally they present primarily the Russian perspective on most
matters. Despite this inherent slant, the book clearly and candidly addresses
such controversial issues as purported wartime atrocities, air and missile attacks
on civilian targets and ensuing civilians casualties, Russian military combat
losses, even those caused by friendly fire, and, in addition to problems faced
by Georgian forces, those that plagued the Russian Army during the course of
combat. Therefore, in terms of its detailed content and clarity, this book represents
an ideal point of departure for the publication of subsequent more detailed
accounts of the war. For context, the readers of this book should also examine
the report prepared by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on
the Conflict in Georgia, now available on line.
1
As for the books contents, the lead essay, written by Vyacheslav Tseluiko,
describes the development of the Georgian Armed Forces from the formation
of the independent Georgian state in 1991 to the conflict in August 2008. By
exploiting a wide range of documents related to foreign military assistance to
Georgia, Tseluiko reveals the nature and perceived intent of Georgias military
reform program and assesses the impact of that reform on the course and
outcome of the ensuing war. The second essay is a detailed account of the
military dimension of the war written by Anton Lavrov, which describes the
wars course chronologically, and, while highlighting such controversial issues as
military and civilian losses, assesses the performance of the contending armies.
Of note in this chapter are the striking continuities in Russian force structure
as indicated by the Russian Armys extensive employment of battalion tactical
groups to conduct tactical maneuver on a battlefield increasingly dominated
by new precision-guided weapons and munitions (PGM), a theme that has
dominated Soviet and Russian military thought since the 1980s. Tseluikos
second essay returns to military-institutional matters by assessing the impact
of the war on the Russian and Georgian Armed Forces. Specifically, Tseluiko
emphasizes changes in force structures, the increasing importance of crisp and
effective automated command and control, particularly in the realm of air-
ground combat, and the influence of new types of weaponry in the Russian
military and extensive international arms transfers to Georgia.
1
See Report of the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia, prepared by the Indepen-
dent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia, Volumes I and II, September 2009,
at <http://www.ceiig.ch/Report.html>
6 Foreword
Lavrov follows with four detailed essays dealing with the nature, causes, and
likely effects of Russian aircraft loses during the war; the nature and reasons
for the Georgian Armys excessive personnel and equipment losses; the postwar
establishment of Russian bases in the independent Abkhazian and Southern
Ossetian states; and a separate essay on Russian and allied losses during the war.
Finally, the appendix details in chart form arms transfers to and purchases by the
Republic of Georgia between 2000 and 2009. The authors have also provided a
useful map that shows the locations where most of the fighting occurred.
Above and beyond the issues directly related to the Russo-Georgian War,
this book also focuses on and analyzes the probable nature of military operations
in the post-Cold War world. This is vitally important because, to a considerable
degree, this war illustrated most if not all of those tendencies and trends so evident
in that emerging world. For example, politically, the war pitted the Russian
Federation, the chagrined and somewhat resentful successor state to the bulk of
the former Soviet Union, against the Republic of Georgia, a new but far smaller
successor state situated in the Caucasus region along the Russian Federations
southern border. The Russian Federation, having lost vast territories, resources,
and populations to successor states that emerged independent after the Soviet
Unions collapse in 1991, perceived genuinely severe threats to its national security
largely because the dissolution of the former Soviet Union deprived it of necessary
strategic defensive depth, that is, large territories hitherto considered vital parts of
its first and second strategic echelon.
On the other hand, the Republic of Georgia, enthusiastic over its newly
won independence, seemed determined to flex its new military muscles
and victimize its former parent state by seizing and annexing the regions of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which it believed were rightfully its own, but
without consulting the inhabitants of both regions. Similarly, many economic
and social differences only intensified hostilities on both sides, as did prospects
for possible Georgian admittance to NATO, which earlier discussions between
the Russian Federation and Western nations seemed to preclude.
In terms of its nature, conduct, and duration, the Russo-Georgian War also
closely resembled the circumstances and outcome of the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.
Just as Israel anticipated Arab aggression, absorbed a first strike by Arab states, and
then struck back effectively in a massive counteroffensive that demoralized and
defeated the coalition of Arab states in just six days of fighting, the Russian Federation
too accepted a Georgian first strike, then responded massively and routed Georgian
forces in just five days. Additionally, as was the case with Israel, which punished the
Arab aggressors by seizing and holding territory (the Golan Heights), the Russian
Federation likewise punished Georgian aggression by seizing, retaining, and then
granting independence to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Militarily, while the Israeli
manner of conducting military operations set the standard for such operations for
7 Foreword
decades to come, the organization of Russian forces signaled the emergence of a new
Russian Army, whose structure and task organization (tactical battalion groups) set
new military standards for the future.
Since acute differences remain between states in the Caucasus region,
despite its Russian focus and point of view , this book is a must read for those
interested in the Russo-Georgian war, in particular, and issues of national,
regional, and international security in the future, in general.
David M. Glantz
Carlisle, PA
8 Foreword
Georgian Army Reform under Saakashvili
Prior to the 2008 Five Day War
Vyacheslav Tseluiko
Brief history of the Georgian army since 1991
The Georgian army was born back in the days when the republic was still part of
the Soviet Union. On December 20, 1990 the Georgian authorities announced
the creation of the National Guard
1
, and then on April 30, 1991 began drafting
recruits for it. That latter date is now celebrated as Georgian Army Day.
In the early 1990s, the National Guard consisted of volunteers. Many of its
members, including some officers and even its commander, Tengiz Kitovani,
had no higher military education. That did not stop some of them later on
from taking up senior positions in the Georgian army. In August 2008, both
deputies of the Chief of Joint Staff, G. Tatishvili and A.Osepaishvili, hailed
from the National Guard and had no higher military education
2
. Like many
such formations throughout the world, the Georgian National Guard suffered
from lack of training and poor discipline. Later on, the National Guard was
incorporated into the Ministry of Defense but by the end of the 1992-1993
war with Abkhazia, that incorporation was still in the early stages.
The ministry itself was created in 1992, well after the Georgian declaration
of independence. In the spring of that year, the 11th Brigade (1st Brigade of the
10 Vyacheslav Tseluiko
1
st
Corps) was set up as part of the ministry
3
. The Georgian Defense Ministry
formations that took the most active part in the war with Abkhazia included the
2
nd
Corps, especially its 23
rd
Mechanized Infantry Brigade, manned predominantly
by ethnic Georgians who lived in Abkhazia. Other Georgian law-enforcement
agencies, primarily the Interior Ministry, were also heavily involved in Abkhazia.
Non-governmental paramilitary formations, such as Jaba Ioselianis
Mkhedrioni militia, constituted another important element of the Georgian
military machine in Abkhazia in 1992-1993. But those groups had even greater
problems with discipline than the rest of the Georgian forces.
One final group worth a separate mention is the Zviadi loyalists, the backers
of Georgias deposed first president Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Their relations with
the Georgian government troops during the war in Abkhazia ranged from
cooperation to armed mutiny in the last days of the defense of Sukhumi.
On the whole, the Georgian military effort in Abkhazia was plagued by
the lack of single military command, and the resulting inability to concentrate
the resources and manpower where it really mattered. It also suffered from
undisciplined commanders in the field, who were often too eager for glory to
follow orders. Another factor that determined the outcome of the war was the
mutiny by Zviadi loyalists.
After the defeat in Abkhazia and the end of the civil war, Georgia stepped
up the reform of its military machine. The paramilitary groups were largely
brought to heel, though that effort was only properly completed under Mikhail
Saakashvili. Zviadi loyalists were crushed, the Mkhedrioni militia disbanded, and
the other nongovernmental formations (including the White Legion, the Forest
Brotherhood and the Hunters) were brought under partial government control.
The National Guard was becoming increasingly integrated into the Defense
Ministry. Eventually its remit shrank to training the reserves, implementing
mobilization plans in wartime and assisting the civilian authorities during civil
unrest or disaster relief.
The military reform and development effort was held back by a number
of problems. The topmost among them was meager funding. As recently as
2002, the countrys defense spending was only 36m lari
4
, rising to 60.9m lari
in 2003
5
. Officers and civilian contractors in the Defense Ministry were paid
peanuts, soldiers in the barracks were expected to get by on a bare minimum,
the equipment was all decrepit and obsolete, and the combat readiness level
predictably low. On top of all that, there was pervasive corruption in the
military system, uncertain loyalties of Adjarian leader Aslan Abashidze, and
doubts as to whether the law enforcement agencies in the Adjarian autonomy
would take orders from Tbilisi if push came to shove.
But there were also positive changes in the last few years of Eduard
Shevardnadzes rule, such as growing military assistance from foreign countries.
11 Georgian Army Reform under Saakashvili Prior to the 2008 Five Day War
America was the key donor, with its 64m dollar Georgia Train and Equip
Program (GTEP), implemented over the period of April 2002 April 2004.
The money was used to train and equip the light infantry battalions of the
11
th
Brigade (now the 1
st
Infantry Brigade), the 16
th
Mountain Battalion of the
National Guard (including the Mountain Warfare School in Sachkhere) and a
Combined Mechanized Company (set up by merging a command company,
a tank company, a mechanized infantry company, engineers and a battery of
120 mm mortars)
6
. According to the Georgian Defense Ministry, the list of
formations trained under the GTEP program includes three battalions of the
1
st
Infantry Brigade, the 21
st
Battalion of the 2nd Infantry Brigade and a tank
battalion some 2,702 servicemen in total. (It also appears that the personnel
of the 16
th
Mountain Battalion was used to create the new 21
st
Light Infantry
Battalion, and the mechanized company given its size was quite rightly
upgraded to a battalion.)
7
The program expired on April 24, 2004 that is,
after Mikhail Saakashvili came to power but the credit for it should rightly go
to Shevardnadze and his top military commanders. Foreign assistance was not
limited to training Georgian army units in Georgia itself. Equally important
was the fact that many senior Georgian officers were invited to take courses
in countries such as Germany, the United States, Turkey and Ukraine. Many
of the now serving Georgian military commanders took part in that training
program under President Shevardnadze.
8
Apart from training, Georgia also received foreign assistance in the form of
arms and equipment. The United States donated scores of trucks and 10 Bell
UH-1H helicopters (four of them were to be cannibalized for parts). Another
two helicopters of the same type were received from Turkey. Ukraine gave
ten L-29 trainer jets and the Tbilisi fast attack craft-missile (Project 206MR).
On the whole, the Georgian army had begun to improve under Shevardnadze
but that process continued at a much greater pace following the arrival of
Saakashvili.
9
Georgian army priorities under Saakashvili
Upon his arrival to power in late 2003, Saakashvili and his team announced a
number of programs and policy documents setting out the priorities of army
reform. These included the National Security Concept
10
, the Threat Assessment
Document
11
, the National Military Strategy
12
, the Strategic Defense Review
13
,
and the Defense Ministers Vision
14
. A gradual change of emphasis in those
documents, released over the period of 2005-2007, reflected a certain evolution
of the Georgian governments views of its army and of the threats the nation
might have to face from other states and non-state actors. Some of the policies
were amended in line with the change of thinking in the Georgian political and
military leadership more details on that later on.
The first of the strategic military documents adopted by the new government
was the National Security Concept (NSC). That was a broad policy document
outlining the governments vision of the national values, domestic, foreign and
economic priorities, environment and culture as well as, of course, defense.
The list of national priorities in the paper included:
territorial integrity;
stability in the Caucasus and the Black Sea region;
securing a role for Georgia as a transit corridor.
The challenges the Georgian army would have to face were defined in the list
of the key threats to national security, which was as follows:
Violation of Georgias territorial integrity here the policy referred to its
two former autonomies, Abkhazia and South Ossetia;
Spread of armed conflict from neighboring countries, primarily from the
Russian North Caucasus;
Military aggression by other nations (this the authors of the document
considered unlikely) or non-state actors (the more likely scenario, in their view);
Terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage against key infrastructure such as oil
and gas pipelines, as well as against foreign embassies and missions;
Contraband and organized international crime;
Russian military bases on Georgian territory, which were viewed as
a short-term threat, pending their complete withdrawal.
The Threat Assessment Document (TAD) and the National Military
Strategy (NMS) contained more or less the same list of national security
threats. The NMS, however, listed as a threat not just the Russian military bases
but also the Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The new
version of TAD adopted in 2007 stated that the threat of large-scale aggression
against Georgia had diminished. That change was most likely prompted by
the completion of the withdrawal of the Russian military bases from Georgia,
among other things.
The Strategic Defense Review (SDR) of 2007 linked the priorities of defense
spending to key threats, including:
Large-scale aggression against Georgia (seen as an unlikely scenario);
Renewal of hostilities in the breakaway autonomies;
Spread of conflict from the North Caucasus;
Spread of conflict from the South Caucasus nations;
International terrorism.
Military planning was based on the assessment of which of the identified
treats was the most likely, and which potentially the most dangerous. Renewal
of hostilities in the former autonomies was seen as the most likely threat in the
2007-2012 time frame, and large-scale aggression as the most dangerous. The
review went on to say that in the 2013-2015 time frame international terrorism
should be seen as the most likely threat, and the spread of conflict from the
North Caucasus as the most dangerous. That assessment was predicated on the
notion that the conflict with the former autonomies would have been peacefully
settled by that time, and that both Abkhazia and North Ossetia would have
been reintegrated back into Georgia. Another assumption was that Georgia
would have made significant progress towards becoming a NATO member,
making the country safe from large-scale military aggression. In the absence of
such progress on NATO membership and peaceful settlement with the former
autonomies, military planning would be based on the threat assessment of the
previous period, the document said.
Two things need to be made clear. First, although it was stressed that
large-scale aggression by a foreign country (i.e. Russia) was seen as unlikely,
preparations for such a scenario were a key component of Georgias military
planning and preparations (more on that later). And second, NATO membership
was seen as a safeguard against such an aggression. That thinking was also
reflected in the earlier documents, such as the National Security Concept and
the National Military Strategy. Apart from the general aspiration to become part
of the Western civilization, NATO membership plans were also based on very
practical considerations. The government realized that Georgias own resources
were limited, and its ability to fend off aggression by a much more powerful
nation such as Russia questionable. Those considerations were reflected in
policy documents such as the NMS.
Meanwhile, the requirement for the Georgian armed forces was to be
able to take part in military action as part of a coalition as well as to fight
on their own in situations such as foreign aggression. A decision was made to
integrate the Georgian military machine into NATO by adapting it to fight
as part of NATO forces in various operations outside Georgia. That, however,
necessitated a reconfiguration of the national armed forces in a direction quite
opposite to the requirements of self-sufficiency. The difficulties brought about
by that inherent contradiction were only compounded by the need to make do
with very limited resources.
In effect, participation in NATO operations required a reorganization of the
Georgian army into a small professional force, highly mobile, relatively lightly
armed, and working to NATO standards and specifications. Sending troops
on foreign missions also meant diverting limited resources from other military
programs. What is more, as Georgias own policy documents recognized,
participation in NATO or US military operations only increased the threat of
a terrorist attack against Georgia. Nevertheless, Georgian military strategists
who worked on the SDR were clearly mindful of NATO recommendations.
Under that document, by 2015 the Georgian army was supposed to have been
transformed into a small and lightly armed force, which would clearly run
counter to Georgias own requirement for military self-sufficiency.
For Georgia, self-sufficiency meant being able to fight on its own in the
event of an escalation in the former autonomies or an external aggression. That
would require a numerical superiority, both in equipment and manpower, over
the Abkhaz and Ossetian forces in a classic or counterinsurgency war. In other
words, the Georgian army needed to bulk up, not to shrink, with more heavy
arms and a large, adequately trained force of reserves.
Preparations for potential aggression by a large foreign country also required a
strong professional army, a large reserve, proper equipment (including air defense
systems) and the ability to wage guerilla warfare against a more powerful adversary.
The latter requirement was reflected in the NMS, and plans for an effective force
of reserves were introduced in the 2006 amendments to the document as part of
the Total Defense doctrine. The NMS also said that the basic tactical formation of
the Georgian army, a light infantry battalion, must be able to wage classical warfare
as well as guerrilla (unconventional) warfare autonomously, but as part or a
general strategy (so-called network warfare). The document therefore introduced
the requirement for proper guerrilla warfare training for regular forces and some of
the reserves. Part of the reason for that thinking was Georgias rather unconventional
approach to defensive warfare against a stronger adversary. Considering the small
size of the country and its bruising experience in the early 1990s, when attempts
to retake lost territories took years with little to no result, the authors of the NMS
took a dim view of strategic retreat. Therefore, the documents recommendation for
Georgian army units facing a superior advancing force was to switch to guerrilla
warfare without abandoning their territory. The best way of countering large-
scale aggression, according to the NMS, was to create the conditions in which
the potential adversary would suffer substantial losses with uncertain chances for
success, and would thereby be deterred from attacking in the first place.
Overall, the NMS defined the objectives of the Georgian armed forces in the
following way:
defense in the general sense, including protection of the countrys
territorial integrity, which included the possibility of offensive operations
against the former autonomies;
prevention and deterrence of potential aggression;
high level of the armed forces readiness to react to any threats to national
security;
international military cooperation with NATO and on a bilateral level.
The document also contained a list of requirements to the Georgian armed forces:
flexibility (i.e. ability to counter a variety of threats, from foreign
aggression and non-state actors to natural or man-made disasters);
ability to conduct operations involving combined services;
compatibility with NATO military formations;
proper operational planning;
supporting civilian authorities;
high quality of the information and reconnaissance component.
The SDR document set out the priorities of military development until 2015,
including:
increasing the mobility and combat readiness of the Georgian army as a
means of deterring potential aggression;
creating an effective reserve, which would form the basis of the Total
Defense doctrine;
improving the effectiveness of the Georgian army during operations in
mountainous terrain;
improving the Georgian forces ability to take part in international and
counter-terrorism operations;
protecting key infrastructure from acts of sabotage;
defending the Georgian airspace;
assisting the civilian authorities in disaster relief.
Based on all of the above, the following set of conclusions can be drawn:
1. The development of Georgias military capability in 2003-2008 was adversely
affected by two contradictory approaches to the overall task of protecting the
country from large-scale foreign aggression. One was for Georgia to join NATO,
the other to rely on its own army. The two different choices necessitated two very
different ways of shaping the armed forces, especially given the limited defense
spending. During that initial stage, the government was leaning towards the
first approach i.e. relying on NATO for its defense but also made certain
steps that were more in line with the second approach.
2. Georgia was making no secret of the fact that it viewed Russia as its most
likely adversary. Russia figured first and foremost in the Saakashvili regimes
planning for both the most dangerous scenario (large-scale aggression) and the
most likely (escalation in the former autonomies). That view informed the entire
strategy of reforming the Georgian army for the period until the government
could secure NATO membership.
3. The requirement for the Georgian army to be prepared for the two different
scenarios (the most likely and the most dangerous) translated into the need
for a universal combat capability. The first scenario called for a force capable
of waging classical and counterinsurgency warfare, with multiple layers of
command. The second would involve guerrilla-style network warfare, with
the core of the Georgian army light infantry battalions operating with a
large degree of autonomy.
4. To fend off potential Russian aggression, the Georgian government relied on
the doctrine of Total Defense, based on the heavy involvement of the civilian
population as part of a large military reserve. The idea was to deter Russia by
confronting it with the prospect of heavy losses, with uncertain chances for a
positive outcome of the conflict.
Georgian army reform under Saakashvili
Structural reform
The Saakashvili government copied the Western model of military set-up, with
the Defense Ministry staffed by civilians, a civilian minister, and a separate
military command structure in the form of General Staff/Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Adopting the NATO system was one of the requirements of the Individual
Partnership Action Plan (IPAP)
15
. The transformation of the General Staff into
Joint Staff (JS) was part of the same drive. The JS was given the command
of all the armed services (the Army, the Air Force and the Navy), as well as
departments such as the National Guard, logistics, training, intelligence and
military police
16
, and some other agencies.
The formations that took their orders directly from the JS included the
Special Operations Group based in Vashlijvari, a suburb of Tbilisi (the former
Kojori special forces brigade). The group included a special operations squad
(staffed only by officers)
17
, a special operations battalion, a special operations
school and a Navy special operations squad.
18
In 2008, an existing military
police company and some of the personnel of the special task force battalion
formed the core of a new military police battalion, which takes orders directly
from the JS.
19
According to the national policy documents, the Army (Land Forces) forms
the core of the Georgian armed forces.
20
As part of that strategy, in the autumn
of 2004 the Interior Ministrys militarized service, the Interior Troops, were
transferred to the Defense Ministry
21
. The reason for that was poor coordination
between the two ministries during the 2004 armed conflict in South Ossetia,
as well as the need to remove duplication between the ministries in exercising
their remit within the recognized Georgian borders. The former Interior Troops
then became the core of the Armys new 4
th
Infantry Brigade. Their helicopter
squadrons were merged with the Air Force. The existing Army brigades and
battalions were reorganized, and received new numbers.
Following that reshuffle, as of January 1, 2007 the Georgian Army included:
the HQ, four infantry brigades, one artillery brigade, seven independent
battalions (a combined tank battalion, two combined light infantry battalions,
one combined engineers and chemical battalion, medical, communications and
intelligence) and an air defense battalion. Of the four infantry brigades, three
(1
st
, 2
nd
and 3
rd
) were manned only by professional soldiers and officers; the 4
th
included some conscripts. The total Army manpower stood at 16,993 people.
22
In accordance with NATO recommendations, which were reflected in the
2007 SDR document, the Armys numerical strength was due to shrink to 11,876
people by 2015 as part of further reform. The 4
th
Infantry Brigade, the two
independent light infantry battalions and the independent tank battalion were
due to be disbanded. The remaining three infantry brigades would each lose
a light infantry battalion. The howitzer and anti-tank batteries of the Artillery
Brigade were also facing the axe. The existing military police battalion, the logistics
battalion and the Air Forces army aviation battalion would all be included in the
Army command structure. Finally, the electronic intelligence battalion would be
reorganized into a military reconnaissance battalion.
23
Overall, the Army was due
to lose eight light infantry battalions (out of the existing 14), two tank battalions
out of five, and two howitzer battalions out of seven.
Those plans were obviously at odds with Saakashvilis ambition to restore
the territorial integrity of the country. They did not quite tally with his
determination to unfreeze the conflicts in the former autonomies and pick
a fight with Russia. That is why NATOs recommendations and the army-
slashing aspirations of the SDR document remained firmly on paper. Far from
shrinking, the Georgian Army actually began to grow very rapidly in 2007.
That growth was reflected in the 2008-2011 Ministers Vision document,
which attempted to explain to NATO why Georgia had abandoned plans to
disband the 4
th
Infantry Brigade and, not satisfied with that, went on to create
the 5
th
Infantry Brigade.
24
Tbilisi cited the increase of its force in Iraq from 850
to 2,000 soldiers, as well as a deterioration in relations with Russia.
On September 14, 2007 the Georgian parliament approved the increase
of the armed forces from 28,000 to 32,000 people.
25
The Defense Ministry
then announced vacancies in the 4
th
Brigade and the newly created 5
th
Infantry
Brigade, based in the western town of Khoni.
26
The brigades 51
st
Light Infantry
Battalion completed its basic training course on March 7, 2008.
27
Nevertheless,
by August 2008 the new brigade was not really up and running. Meanwhile,
the replacement of the 4
th
Brigades conscripts with professional soldiers was
completed only in the summer of 2008, and much of its strength had only had
the time to finish preliminary training.
28
On July 15, 2008, the Georgian parliament approved yet another increase
of the military strength to 37,000 people. Plans were afoot to create the 6
th

Infantry Brigade and beef up the Navy and Air Defense. On the day of the
vote in parliament, Georgia began the deployment in Gori of an independent
Engineers Brigade but that process still wasnt finished in August.
The resulting composition of the Georgian Army on August 8, 2008 was as
follows: the HQ; five infantry brigades (the 1st in Gori, the 2
nd
in Senaki, the
3
rd
in Kutaisi, the 4
th
in Vaziani near Tbilisi, and the 5
th
in Khoni); the artillery
brigade in Gori (some of its strength was based in Khoni); the engineers brigade
in Gori; six independent battalions (a combined tank battalion in Gori with 50
T-72 tanks, a light infantry battalion in Adliya, a medical battalion in Saguramo,
a communications battalion in Vaziani, an electronic reconnaissance battalion
in Kobuleti, and a logistics battalion in Tbilisi); and one air defense battalion
in Kutaisi. The total Army strength stood at about 22,000.
29
A typical Georgian infantry brigade had a total manpower of 3,265 people
30

and comprised: the HQ (60 people) and the HQ company (108 people and two
BMP armored infantry vehicles); three light infantry battalions (591 people
each); one combined tank battalion (two tank companies and one mechanized
company, with a total of 380 soldiers and officers, 30 T-72 tanks and 15 BMP
armored infantry vehicles); a logistics battalion (288 people); an artillery
battalion (371 people, 18 towed 122 mm D-30 howitzers, twelve 120 mm
mortars and four ZSU-23-4 air defense systems) reconnaissance company (101
people, 8 armored personnel carriers) communications company (88 people,
2 APCs) combined engineers company (96 people).
The artillery brigade served as the main backup for Army operations. As of
mid-2008, the brigade included: the HQ; a battalion of 2A65 Msta-B 152 mm
towed howitzers; a battalion of 2C3 Akatsiya 152 mm self-propelled howitzers;
a battalion of Dana 152 mm self-propelled gun-howitzers; a battery of 2S7 Pion
203mm self-propelled guns; a rocket artillery battalion (MLRs); an anti-tank
battalion
31
; a training battalion; a logistics battalion; a guards company.
32
The Georgian peacekeeper battalion was deployed in the direct vicinity
of Tskhinvali. As of August 8, it consisted of the 11th Light Infantry Battalion
of the 1st Infantry Brigade and a mechanized company of the Independent
Tank Battalion.
When the war broke out, the larger part of Georgias best-trained 1st
Infantry Brigade was in Iraq
33
including personnel of the HQ and the HQ
company, the 12
th
and 13
th
Light Infantry Battalions, the logistics battalion, the
engineers and reconnaissance companies, and a large part of the tank companys
strength. The 1
st
Brigade was initially supposed to return from its tour of duty
in Iraq in the summer of 2008, but those plans were delayed in order to give the
replacement 4
th
Brigade more time to prepare.
As of August 2008, the Georgian Armys arsenal included:
T-72 main battle tanks of various modifications 191
(including about 120 of the upgraded T-72-SIM-1 tanks);
T-55AM tanks - 56;
BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles 80 (including 15 upgraded BMP-1U);
BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles 74;
BRM-1K combat reconnaissance vehicles 11;
BRDM-2 armored reconnaissance and patrol vehicles 5;
BTR-70 armored personnel carriers 31;
(including 16 upgraded BTR-70Di vehicles);
BTR-80 armored personnel carriers 35;
MT-LB multipurpose tracked armoured vehicles 86;
2S7 Pion 203 mm self-propelled guns 6;
2S19 Msta-S 152 mm self-propelled howitzer 1;
2S3 Akatsiya 152 mm self-propelled howitzers 13;
Dana 152 mm self-propelled gun-howitzers 24;
2A65 Msta-B 152 mm towed howitzers 11;
2A36 Giatsint-B 152 mm towed guns 3;
D-30 122 mm towed howitzers 109;
MT-12 100 mm anti-tank guns 15;
D-48 85 mm anti-tank guns 40;
GradLAR 122 mm/160 mm MLRS 4 to 8;
RM-70 122 mm MLRS 6;
BM-21 Grad 122 mm MLRS 16;
120 mm mortars about 80;
60 mm, 81 mm and 82 mm mortars about 300;
S-60 57 mm towed anti-aircraft guns 15;
ZU-23-2 twin 23 mm anti-aircraft guns
(some of them mounted on MT-LB chassis) 30;
ZSU-23-4 Shilka self-propelled anti-aircraft system with four 23 mm
guns 15.
The Georgian arsenal also included large numbers of anti-tank guided
missile systems such as Fagot, Faktoriya and Konkurs, as well as man-portable
anti-aircraft missile systems (Strela-2M, Igla-1, Igla and Grom 2).
The Georgian military reform under Saakashvili also involved the National
Guard here, too the country followed NATO recommendations
34
. From
what was essentially a smaller version of the Army, the National Guard was
transformed into a system of training reserves and implementing mobilization
and territorial defense plans, with a secondary role of assisting the civilian
authorities in disaster relief. The Georgian government was struggling with the
conflicting needs of reducing the size of the armed forces in line with NATO
recommendations, while also remaining prepared for an escalation in Abkhazia
and South Ossetia, and possibly for a conflict with Russia as well. The Georgian
answer to that dilemma was a large program of training reserves.
Even before the 2004 conflict in South Ossetia, a decision was made to set
up territorial National Guard battalions manned by volunteers, who were given
a three-week training course. A total of 27 such battalions were created.
35
But
the program only gained its truly impressive proportions after the parliament
approved the Total Defense doctrine in September 2006 and the bill on the
reserve service the following December
36
. Under the bill, the Georgian military
reserve would be made of three components: the active component (conscription),
the individual component (retired soldiers and officers of the regular army), and
the National Guard (the volunteer battalions trained in 2004-2006). In 2007, the
Defense Ministry rolled out an 18-day training program for active reserve light
infantry battalions. The plan was to merge those battalions into brigades at a
later stage. The 10
th
Brigade would be based in Kojori, the 20
th
in Senaki, the 30
th
in Khoni, the 40
th
in Mukhrovani, and the 50
th
in Telavi. Apart from the light
infantry battalions, the reserve brigades were also supposed to include artillery
batteries.
37
The 420
th
Reserve Tank Battalion was created in 2008.
38
The composition of the Georgian Air Force in August 2008 was as follows:
The Air Operations Center;
Marneuli Airbase
(a squadron of Su-25 attack aircraft and a squadron of L-39 trainers);
Alekseevka Airbase (a squadron of Mi-8 helicopters and a squadron of UH-1H
helicopters) plus a mixed helicopter squadron (Mi-8, Mi-14 and Mi-24);
UAV squadron;
Six radar stations;
Electronic reconnaissance unit;
Two air defense bases (two battalions of S-125M SAM systems, two
batteries of the Buk-M1 SAM systems, up to 18 units of the Osa-AK/
AKM SAM systems and several units of the Spyder-SR SAM system);
Training center with a squadron of An-2 light transport aircraft.
39
Under the reform plans outlined in the SDR document, the Georgian Air
Force was expected to shed all its aircraft by 2015, turning essentially into an
air defense service.
40
The existing squadron of Su-25 was due to be disbanded,
and the remaining helicopters and UAVs would be transferred to the Army. But
those projections were greatly at odds with the reality. The Georgian Air Force
continued to buy more Su-25 and L-39 aircraft in 2007-2008, and the Georgian
leadership was discussing plans to place an order for several fighter jets.
In August 2008, the Georgian Air Force had: 10 Su-25 attack aircraft (five
of them upgraded to the Su-25KM Scorpion specifications), 2 Su-25UB combat
trainers, 12 L-39C jet trainers, 4 Yak-52 piston trainers, 6 An-2 light transports,
5 Mi-24V and 3 Mi-24P attack helicopters, 18 Mi-8T/MTV utility helicopters,
2 Mi-14BT utility helicopters, 6 Bell UH-1H and 6 Bell 212 utility helicopters.
The Georgian Navy consisted of the main Navy base in Poti; a secondary
Navy base in Batumi; a fleet that included a squadron of missile crafts, a squadron
of patrol boats, and another squadron of transports (assault landing ships); a unit
of marines and a mine clearance team. The fleets total manpower was in the
region of 1,000 people. Its ships included: 2 fast attack craft-missile: the Tbilisi
(Project 206MR) and the Dioscuria (La Combattante II-class); 8 patrol boats,
2 landing craft (LCU), 2 small landing craft, up to 6 small boats.
It appears, however, that most of the Georgian Navys ships and boats
(including the two fast attack craft-missile) were not in proper working order
when hostilities began in August.
There was also the Georgian Coast Guard, equipped with just one patrol
ship, the Ayety (a former German Lindau-class minesweeper) and up to 35 patrol
boats. Under the SDR plans, the Coast Guard was due to be merged with the
Navy by 2015.
41
Training and professionalism
In terms of military discipline, training and professionalism, the Georgian army
had made great progress by 2008 compared to the earlier days of near-anarchy.
That progress was based on three key factors: a) a transition from conscription
to professional service; b) reform of the military education and training system;
and c) foreign assistance.
Compared to other CIS nations, Georgia has probably been the most
successful in phasing out conscription in favor of professional service. There
have been two main reasons for that. First, the unresolved conflicts on Georgian
territory and high probability of an armed conflict meant that those Georgians
who elected to enter military service were highly motivated. That was especially
true of the ethnic Georgian refugees who had fled from the former Georgian
Soviet Republics autonomies. And second, Georgian soldiers are relatively well
paid, even by the standards of the richer post-Soviet republics. According to the
Georgian Defense Ministrys spending figures for 2008, the monthly salary of
a Georgian corporal (the starting rank when entering professional service) was
925 lari (640 dollars at the mid-2008 exchange rate). A lieutenants salary was
1,119 lari (770 dollars). Compared to 2004, a corporals pay had risen by 764 per
cent, and a lieutenants by 631 per cent (though the figures are not adjusted for
inflation)
42
. Strong competition for every vacancy meant that the army could choose
only the best. Apart from high basic pay, Georgian soldiers also enjoy generous social
benefits, and they live in comfortable new or refurbished military compounds.
Service in the military is especially attractive to the struggling refugees from the
former autonomies. And since many of them have personal reasons to want to join
the army due to their past experience, they are disproportionately represented in the
Georgian armed forces. The generous pay of the Georgian soldiers has its downsides
as well: military commanders are often tempted to give the jobs to their friends and
relatives, regardless of their professional qualifications.
The Saakashvili government has also reformed military education and
training. Officer training in particular has undergone a serious transformation.
The old Soviet system, whereby junior officers would spend years in military
school, has been replaced by the Western model: short training courses
alternating with longer stints of service in the field. The regular army (especially
its newly created formations) and the National Guard required large numbers
of new officers, which is why a short junior officer training program was rolled
out. There are three levels of courses (A, B and C), each lasting 7-10 months.
Once the cadet completes all three, he is given the rank of lieutenant.
43
Those
who wish to enroll are required to have college-level education, so during the
courses themselves no time is wasted on general disciplines, as happens in
many other post-Soviet military schools. The advanced C-level course is where
recruits are given specialist training. In late 2007 early 2008, 54 young officers
took a 9-month course which included air assault and parachute training at
the Alekseevka airbase, and mountain training in Sachkhere. They were also
coached by Georgian and Israeli experts in topography and urban warfare tactics.
Another 150 recruits enrolled in 2008.
44
Due to the shortage of junior officers
experienced by the expanding Georgian army and the National Guard, the
Defense Ministry introduced fast-track junior officer courses for professional
service sergeants with prior college-level education. Upon completion of the
9-week courses the sergeants are given the rank of Second Lieutenant.
The next stage of officer training is the 12-18 week Captain-level course
at the Academy of National Defense, the former Tbilisi Artillery Command School.
The course was developed for Senior Lieutenants, Captains and Majors most
of them company commanders and heads of battalion HQs.
45
There is also
a fast-track 5-week course for Captains.
46
The fighting ability of the Georgian army under Saakashvili is adversely affected
by two major problems:
One is the high number of fresh new officers, who still need time to
learn theory and gain proper experience in the field though training
assistance offered by foreign countries helps here a bit.
The other is the frequent reshuffles in the higher echelons of the Georgian
army, with young and relatively junior officers often appointed to
senior positions. To illustrate, many commanders of infantry brigades
hold the rank of Major or even Captain. Meanwhile, more experienced
commanding officers are often sent into retirement for political reasons.
Nevertheless, the bulk of the Georgian servicemen are notably better
trained than before, thanks in large part to improving standards at the Krtsanisi
National Military Training Center. That Center has received generous foreign
assistance: its instructors have been trained in Western academies, its equipment
and facilities have been upgraded using foreign aid, and a number of training
programs are funded by Western donors. Western-trained instructors have
been instrumental in rolling out the Basic Combat Training program, which is
essentially a military induction course for cadets and candidates for professional
service vacancies. Another training program worth a separate mention is the
US-funded Georgia Sustainment and Stability Operations Program. Its first
phase, GSSOP-I, worth 61m dollars, was launched in the spring of 2005 and
ended in the autumn of 2006. Its beneficiaries were the 22
nd
, 23
rd
and 31
st

Light Infantry Battalions, the logistics battalions of the 1
st
and 2
nd
Infantry
Brigades, the reconnaissance company of the 2
nd
Brigade and an independent
military police company. The second phase, GSSOP-II, lasted from the
autumn of 2006 until the summer of 2007. The beneficiaries were the 32
nd

and 33
rd
Light Infantry Battalions, the logistics battalion of the 3
rd
Brigade, the
brigades reconnaissance, engineering and communications companies, and the
communications company of the 2
nd
Brigade.
47
It must be said, however, that
the program was largely aimed at preparing Georgian troops for service in Iraq,
and focused on counterinsurgency operations. The 4
th
Infantry Brigade, which
led the Georgian offensive against Tskhinvali in August 2008, was not involved
in that training program at all.
Georgia also used foreign assistance in setting up the junior commanders
school in Gori (which was later moved to Krtsanisi) and especially the mountain
warfare school in Sachkhere, which relied heavily on French and Swiss help.
Many Georgian cadets, officers and light infantry formations have passed
through the Sachkhere school, which is especially important for the Georgian
army given the countrys mountainous terrain.
48
As part of Georgias NATO integration plans, and in an effort to improve
the military communications system, the government has signed a contract
for the supply of radio communications systems for the Georgian army with
Americas Harris Corporation. Georgian instructors trained by Harris now
teach at a special training center hosted by an independent communications
battalion in Saguramo.
49
Apart from NATO countries, Georgian officers have also been sent for
training to Ukraine. More than 150 Georgian servicemen took a training course
in 2007-2008 at the Kharkiv Air Force University, including at least 30 pilots.
After clocking up 25 hours on the L-39 trainers during the 8-month course,
and taking additional training with the Mi-8 helicopters, those pilots returned
to Georgia to continue their training at the Marneuli airbase.
50
Foreign private military contractors have also played a role in building up
Georgias military capability. US contractors such as MPRI, Cubic Defense
Applications and American Systems have been involved in consulting the
Georgian Defense ministry and training the Georgian special task forces.
Israeli companies, including Defense Shield, have been contracted to train
junior officers and NCOs, as well as to help with general planning.
A large-scale training program for the active (conscription) component of
the military reserve as part of the Total Defense doctrine was rolled out in 2007.
Under the National Guards training plan for 2007, 25,000 reserves were due
to take an 18-day course, and 27 territorial battalions of the National Guard
were scheduled for a refresher course. Many of the active reserve conscripts
were college or university students. Their 18-day program included small arms
training (4 days), tactics (8 days), engineering (1 day), arms and tactics of the
potential adversary (1 day), survival and first medical aid (1 day) and field
training (1 day), plus 2 days for organizational issues.
51
Given the short duration
of the course, it is unlikely that the trainees will have learnt very much at
the very best, they will have got a very general idea of what military service
is like. The eight-day refresher training in 2008 for the reserves called up the
previous year was also clearly far too short. Once that course was completed,
new conscripts of the 2008 draft began to arrive at the National Guard bases
for the 18-day program. The scale of the basic reserve training program (25,000
fresh conscripts each year) and the refresher courses (25,000 people in 2008 and
a projected 50,000 in 2009), was probably far too ambitious. Training reserves
to proper standards required more spending to allow for longer courses, with
more time both at the firing range and in the class. There was also a serious
shortage of commanding officers for the reserve brigades and battalions, and of
specialists trained in the use of heavy arms, artillery and armor.
No wonder then that the program of building a large and effective military
reserve has turned out to be a failure, as demonstrated by the Five Day War. The
National Guard battalions were of little use in battle. They were poorly trained,
didnt have enough commanding officers and lacked heavy infantry arms, including
anti-tank weapons. On the whole, that failure can be attributed to strategic errors
(such as putting quantity over quality) as well as lack of time. The National Guard
formations manned by ethnic Georgians living in the conflict zones, which took on
the role of self-defense militia during the hostilities, also proved largely ineffective.
Their morale and motivation was better compared to the other reserves, but they
suffered from all the usual problems of the Georgian National Guard.
52
On the whole, the Georgian military capability had made great progress
since the departure of President Shevardnadze. But judging from some Internet
reports in 2008, many foreign military advisers and instructors (including
those from the United States, Israel and Ukraine) were quite scathing about the
Georgian armys level of professionalism, compounded by some innate traits of
the Georgian psyche. They complained that most of the new recruits entering
professional military service were poorly educated. There was a serious problem
with discipline. Theft of army property, corruption and cronyism were rife.
Many Georgian officers were poorly trained, and lacked any inclination to
learn. Commanders were often loath to enforce standards and discipline, and
Georgians in general were said to be all too eager to show off.
New weapons and equipment
Weapons and equipment has undoubtedly been the greatest area of improvement
of the Georgian military capability under Saakashvili. The key factor here was
a massive increase in military spending. The Georgian Defense Ministry spent
more money in 2007 than during the three previous years put together.
53
The
weapons procurement budget reached 291.8m lari (177m dollars) in 2008.
54
During the early years of the Saakashvili government, the Georgians mostly
bought Soviet-made hardware from the army surplus of other CIS nations
(primarily Ukraine) and Eastern Europe. It was cheap and did not require
expensive training. The shopping list included T-72 main battle tanks, BMP-2
infantry fighting vehicles, BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, 2S3 and Dana
self-propelled howitzers, D-30 towed howitzers, mortars, small arms, anti-tank
missiles and grenade-launchers, Buk-M1 and Osa-AK/AKM SAM systems,
man-portable SAMs, Mi-24 attack helicopters, etc. By 2008, Georgia had
achieved a clear superiority in arms and equipment over the armies of its two
former autonomies, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Thanks to its high level of military spending relative to GDP, Georgia took
its military procurement policy to another level in 2007. It became the first
of the former Soviet republics to begin placing large orders for Western-made
military equipment, and launched a program of upgrading its existing hardware
to Western standards.
One of the largest infantry procurement programs, launched in January
2008, was to replace the entire Georgian regular armys Kalashnikovs with the
5.56 mm M4A3 automatic carbines made by Americas Bushmaster Firearms
International. For all its pros and cons, the decision was fully in line with the
governments course towards NATO membership, as it made the Georgian
army more compatible with coalition forces during operations such as the ones
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, the National Guards large active reserve needed
to be armed one way or another. The government therefore decided to upgrade
the regular army to the M4A3 carbines, and give its old Kalashnikovs to the
reserves. It must be said, however, that the Georgian armys procurement process
is rather disorganized, and much of the Defense Ministrys limited resources
are therefore wasted.
In order to prepare its army for the possible use of force against the former
autonomies, as well as to deter Russia from becoming involved, Georgia had
spent a lot of money on heavy weapons. The largest of the Army procurement
programs included:
Self-propelled artillery: several battalions of self-propelled artillery were
set up as part of the Artillery Brigade. Georgia bought twelve 2S3 self-
propelled howitzers from Ukraine and 24 Dana systems from the Czech
Republic over the period of 2003-2006. In also bought five 2S7 Pion
203 mm self-propelled long-range guns from Ukraine in 2007-2008.
55
Six RM-70 122 mm multiple-launch rocket artillery systems were bought
from the Czech Republic starting from 2003. More importantly, Georgia
also bought four to eight Israeli-made GradLAR systems; some of them
were equipped with 160 mm LAR-160 Mk IV rockets with a range of up to
45 km. There is some uncertainty over the purchase of 262 mm long-range
M-87 Orkan MLR systems from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Some 500 rockets
for these systems were sold to Georgia in 2006, but it remains unclear
whether the five launchers ordered by Tbilisi have actually been delivered.
56
Mortars were seen as an effective weapon in mountainous terrain, especially
if the Georgian army is forced to fight as a guerrilla force against a stronger
opponent. In addition to the mortars Georgia had inherited from the Soviet
army, it bought large batches of them from the Czech Republic and Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
57
It also received 60 mortars of the 60 mm caliber from
Greece as a gift.
58
Georgia was especially interested in the 60 mm and
81/82 mm mortars as they do not count towards the ceilings agreed
in the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE).
In an effort to bolster the tank and armor component of its armed forces,
Georgia bought large batches of them from Ukraine and the Czech
Republic. Over the period of 2004-2008, Georgia bought 180 T-72 main
battle tanks, 52 BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, 15 upgraded BMP-1U
vehicles, 30 BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, and 25 upgraded
BTR-70Di armored personnel vehicles.
59
In late 2007 Tbilisi placed
an order for 76 new Ejder armored personnel carriers with Turkeys Nurol.
Previously, the Georgian Interior Ministry had bought from Turkey
100 Otokar Cobra light armored vehicles.
Large numbers of cars and trucks were bought in order to bolster the
armys mobility. Some 400 KrAZ trucks were bought from Ukraine
(150 of them in 2008).
60
Tbilisi also bought KamAZ trucks from Russia,
as well as Toyota Hilux pickups and Land Rovers from other countries.
Apart from the already mentioned M4A3 carbines, Georgia also bought
Western-made sniper rifles, AGS-17 automatic grenade launchers from Ukraine,
and Fagot and Konkurs anti-tank guided missile systems from Bulgaria.
61
Under the CFE Treaty, Georgias quota of heavy weapons is 220 tanks,
135 infantry fighting vehicles, 85 armored personnel carriers, and 285 guns of
the 100 mm and larger caliber.
62
And while the armored vehicles quota is quite
adequate to the Georgian armys needs, the artillery limitations are clearly a bit
tight, given the size of Georgias artillery formations.
In addition to buying new weapons, several big upgrade programs have been
rolled out under the Saakashvili government. The largest of them include the
upgrade of the Georgian fleet of T-72 tanks to the T-72-SIM-1 specification,
developed by Israels Elbit Systems. The Georgian version of the T-72-SIM-1 tank
is equipped with a GPS navigation unit, separate infrared cameras controlled
by the commander and the driver, and a Harris Falcon communication system.
They are also equipped to fire Ukrainian-made Kombat guided tank-launched
missiles (400 of them were bought from Ukraine in 2007). All those upgrades
made the Georgian T-72s superior to the tanks of Georgias former autonomies
and other nations of the Caucasus, as well as to any tanks Russias North
Caucasus military district could deploy in 2008. That superiority is especially
strong during night time and in adverse weather conditions. The first Georgian
tank company to be trained in the use of the upgraded tank began its training
on February 13, 2008, and finished on February 25, 2008.
63
By August 2008,
the Georgians had upgraded 120 of their T-72s.
The Georgian Air Force procurement program included the purchase of
L-39 trainers, as well as Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters from Ukraine; Shturm
anti-tank guided missiles from Kazakhstan
64
, Elbit Hermes 450 and Skylark
UAVs from Israel, and the modernization of the Su-25 attack aircraft to the
Su-25KM specification. The latter program involved Israels Elbit Systems.
Georgia also signed a contract with Americas Sikorsky Aircraft for the delivery
of 15 new UH-60 utility helicopters in 2010-2011.
65
Serious progress was made in upgrading the countrys air defense system.
Two modern 36D6-M radars were bough from Ukraine under Saakashvili,
five Kolchuga-M passive sensor systems, one Mandat radioelectronic warfare
system, two battalions of the Buk-M1 SAM systems, and up to 18 Osa-AK/
AKM SAM systems.
66
Four Georgian P-18 radars were upgraded by Ukraines
Aerotekhnika to the P-180U specification. In 2008, Aerotekhnika also linked
all of Georgias military radars and four civilian air traffic control radars, as well
as the Kolchuga-M passive detection systems, into a single ASOC system with a
control center in Tbilisi. A battery of the latest Rafael Spyder-SR SAM systems
was bought from Israel. The Russian Defense Ministry also reported that in 2008,
the Georgian army bought a Skywatcher automated theater air defense control
system from Turkeys Aselsan. All of these preparations were obviously meant
to neutralize the Russian Air Force in the event of an armed conflict between
the two countries, although the scale of those preparations did not quite match
the level of threat. The Georgian army also had a large number of man-portable
SAM systems, including 30 modern Grom 2 systems bought from Poland.
The Georgian Navys biggest acquisitions under Saakashvili included the
Dioscuria fast attack craft-missile (French made, of the La Combattante II-class)
given in 2004 by Greece as a gift, along with 10 Exocet MM38 anti-ship missiles.
67

The Georgian Coast Guard has also placed an order for two high-speed patrol boats
of the MRTP 33 and MRTP 20 classes - these are now being built in Turkey.
Infrastructure
Military infrastructure development took up a large chunk of the Defense
Ministrys spending under Saakashvili. The government pursued a two-fold
objective: improving the Georgian servicemens living and training standards,
and setting up new military bases closer to the expected theater of conflict.
The latter priority led to the creation of a new base in Gori for the 1
st
Infantry
Brigade, and of another base in Senaki for the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade. The Artillery
Brigade was then moved to the former base of the 3
rd
Brigade in Gori, and a new
base was built in Khoni for the newly-created 5
th
Infantry Brigade. As a result,
by 2008 Georgia had its 1
st
Infantry Brigade and the Artillery Brigade stationed
within 30 km of the Ossetian border. The 2
nd
Infantry Brigade was stationed
within 40 km of the Georgian-Abkhazian border along the river Inguri, and
the new 5
th
Infantry Brigade within 60 km of that border.
68,69
Meanwhile, the
3
rd
Infantry Brigade, which is based in Kutaisi, could be deployed against either
Abkhazia or South Ossetia, depending on where it was needed the most. All
those relocations gave Georgia a much better starting position in the event of a
blitzkrieg against its former autonomies.
The construction of a modern and well-equipped base of the 2
nd
Infantry
Brigade in Senaki was completed in May 2007, and of the 1
st
Brigades new Gori base
in January 2008. In addition to building the new bases, Georgia also refurbished
the old ones, belonging to the regular army as well as the National Guard, which
uses them as reservist training centers. One project worth a separate mention is the
refurbishment and upgrade of the Marneuli airbase, with Turkish assistance.
70
Financing
Foreign assistance played a significant role in the financing of Georgias army, but
it should not be overestimated. Georgia has been receiving foreign assistance from
a number of countries, and the cost of these programs often ran into millions
or even tens of millions of dollars. The largest of them, GTEP and GSSOP-I,
cost more than 60 million dollars each. But compared to Georgias own military
spending, the total amount of foreign funding is not that large. The accumulated
figure over the period of 2002-2008 is estimated at 300m dollars.
US military assistance, which is of course the most frequently mentioned,
began back in 1997. This is when, at President Shevardnadzes request,
Georgia was included in the US-funded International Military Education and
Training Program (IMET) and Foreign Military Financing (FMF). At first, the
Americans were quite cautious. They donated to Georgia only non-combat
equipment from the US army stock, all of it hopelessly obsolete. In 1999-2001,
Georgia was given 10 old Bell UH-1H helicopters (all made in 1973-1974; four
of them were to be cannibalized for spares), 500 old trucks (made in 1969-1971),
30,000 uniforms, 16,000 pairs of boots, mine-clearing tools, communication
equipment, generators, army tents, etc. The cost of the program was 11m
dollars, including 3 million spent on helicopters and pilot training. Georgia
was given a further 17.5m dollars worth of aid in 1997-1999 under the FMF
program, which included training courses for 140 Georgian officers.
71
As part of the US-funded Georgian Border Security and Law Enforcement
program, the Georgian border guard was given 18m dollars worth of aid in
1999.
72
That included the refurbishment of the Alekseevka airbase, which
is the home base of the Georgian Air Forces helicopter squadron, and the
construction of a modern new border post and the Krasnyy Most checkpoint
on the border with Azerbaijan. The Georgian Coast Guard was given two
Point-class patrol boats from the US Coast Guard stock. Over the period of
1992-2005, the United States gave Georgia 134.58m dollars worth of assistance
under the Export Control & Border Security (EXBS) program.
73
The total amount of US military and security aid to Georgia in 1992-2005 is
379.02m dollars.
74
That figure does not include most of the spending under the
GTEP and GSSOP-I programs in 2002-2006 - their worth is estimated at about
125m dollars, and only a small fraction of it came from the FMF funding. But
out of the 379.02m dollars, 283 million was spent on various auxiliary programs,
as well as improving the border guard service, law-enforcement, measures against
organized crime, contraband and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
etc. The program from which the Georgian armed forces benefitted the most
directly in terms of arms and equipment was the FMF program, worth only
about 83.29m dollars over the period of 1992-2005. Meanwhile, officer training
under the IMET program cost a very modest 7.18m dollars.
We estimate the annual amount of US military aid to Georgia in the
five-year period to 2003, the year President Shevardnadze was deposed, at
about 20m dollars on average, excluding the GTEP and GSSOP-I training
programs. Total foreign military aid in that period amounted to 25-30m dollars
a year (again, not including the GTEP training program). That figure was
comparable to Georgias own annual defense spending in 1997-2000. Starting
from 2001, the amount of foreign military aid given to Georgia started to rise
very sharply especially after the GTEP program was rolled out in 2002 and
2003. Over the period of 2002-2004, the United States alone gave Georgia
about 98m dollars in military assistance.
75
Total foreign military aid in 2002
and 2003 was worth an estimated 50m dollars. The budget of the Georgian
Ministry of Defense was only about a third of that figure, so 70 per cent of the
countrys defense spending was funded by foreign countries. Essentially, in the
last couple of years of the Shevardnadze presidency, the Georgian armed forces
were bankrolled by NATO countries, primarily the United States.
Immediately after the arrival of Saakashvili (in 2004-2005), US military aid
especially the GTEP, GSSOP-I and GSSOP-II training program continued to
play an important role. But the rapid growth of Georgias own defense spending
soon outstripped foreign assistance. In 2004, Georgian armed forces were given
40m dollars worth of aid by the United States, and a record 74 million in 2005.
But the countrys own defense budget over those two years was 300 million.
Starting from 2005, Georgian military spending began to grow at a break-neck
speed, with massive year-on-year increases, reaching almost 1bn dollars by 2007.
That year saw the end of the GSSOP-II program, and Americas military aid to
Georgia fell to a modest 13-16m dollars a year
76
, most of it spent on training.
What is more, Georgia had to pay for all the foreign assistance its army had
received by sending its troops to participate in US-led and NATO operations in
Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Those missions cost Georgia as much as it had
received in foreign military aid, if not more.
Turkeys military assistance to Georgia over the period of 1997-2006 is
estimated at over 37m dollars.
77
Other nations also contributed, mostly by
training Georgian officers. That list includes Germany, Britain, France, Greece,
a number of Eastern European nations and even China.
But in the end, starting from 2006, direct foreign military assistance ceased
to be a major factor in the ongoing improvement of Georgias military capability.
The Georgian government has increased its military spending to such a degree
that the armed forces can now afford expensive arms procurement and upgrade
programs. The Georgian army no longer has to take what it is given by foreign
donors it can now place relatively large orders for fairly advanced arms and
equipment of its own choosing.
Table 1. Georgias actual military spending in 2003-2008
(excluding foreign military assistance)
Year 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Spending plan, million lari 60.9 67 138.9 392.6 513.2 1,100
Actual spending, million lari 60.9 173.9 368.9 684.9 1,494 1,545
Actual spending, million dollars 30 97 203 388 940 1,003
Actual military spending
relative to GDP, %
0.7 1.8 3.2 4.9 8 8.1
Source for spending figures in lari: Strategic Defense Review. Georgian Ministry
of Defense, Tbilisi, 2007. Table compiled by CAST.
Table 2. US direct military assistance to Georgia in FY 2007-2010, million dollars
Financial year 2007 2008 2009
2010
(request)
Foreign Military Financing (FMF) 9.7 9 11 16
International Military Education
and Training (IMET)
1.16 0.761 1.15 2
Non-Proliferation, Anti-Terrorism,
Demining, and Related Programs
5.15 3.21 2.2 n/a
Total 16.01 12.982 14.2 > 18
Source: US Department of State.
Two key observations can be made about the financial side of Georgian
military policy. The first is the huge increase in military spending under
Saakashvili. Compared to 2003, the spending figure for 2007 had multiplied by
a factor of 24.5. That is probably a world record, although if foreign military aid
is taken into account, the actual increase in the funding of Georgias army was
a bit less extreme. The second observation is that the Saakashvili government
has introduced the practice of increasing actual military spending compared
to budget projections, sometimes revising the figures upwards several times
through the course of a single year.
To illustrate, the Georgian Defense Ministrys budget was revised upwards
no less than three times in 2007. Actual spending reached 940m dollars that
year, an increase of 191 per cent compared to the initial spending plan. The
additional money was spent on:
increasing the size of the Georgian contingent in Iraq;
increasing the size of the armed forces from 28,000 to 32,000 people and
plans to create the new 5
th
Infantry Brigade;
the rollout of the National Guards active reserve training program;
additional arms procurement and upgrade programs.
The 2008 Defense Ministry spending plan was 1,100m lari. But Georgia
sustained heavy military and economic losses during the war in August. As a
result, in the second half of 2008 it was forced to put its plans for further military
expansion on hold, and focus on restoring its damaged military infrastructure.
The army was given an additional 450m lari in September, and the actual 2008
spending figure reached 1,545m lari (1,003m dollars). Much of it was apparently
spent on financing the war effort and repairing the damage sustained during
the conflict, so the rest of the spending programs had to be cut. Amid the
world economic crisis that soon followed, it became clear that Georgia could
no longer afford to keep its military spending at an unprecedented 8 per cent of
the GDP. For the first time in many years, the Georgian military budget was
cut in 2009, falling to 940m lari.
Conclusions
There has been a rapid increase in Georgias military capability and the size of
its armed forces since the Saakashvili regime came to power. The country has
achieved serious progress in military training, infrastructure, procurement and
upgrade programs. The governments policy of ramping up military spending
was instrumental here, while foreign military assistance was a contributing
factor. Compared to the Shevardnadze days, the Georgian army has undergone
a radical transformation. By the summer of 2008, it had turned into a serious
threat to the former Georgian autonomies. All that being said, Georgias efforts
to bolster its military capability under Saakashvili have been held back by
numerous contradictions in its strategy, erratic planning and serious difficulties
with personnel training. All these problems have been compounded by the rapid
increase in the armys size and frequent politically motivated rounds of sackings
of senior officers. Meanwhile, the military training system simply could not
keep up with the rapid increase of personnel numbers.
The culmination of Mikhail Saakashvilis years of efforts to transform the
Georgian army came in August of 2008, when the ambitious and nationalistic
Georgian leader ordered his troops to conquer South Ossetia. The operation to
capture Tskhinvali involved the bulk of Georgias combat-ready forces (with the
exception of the main strength of the 1
st
Infantry Brigade, which was serving
in Iraq). This military brinkmanship immediately led to an armed conflict
with Russia, and a massive retaliatory strike by the Russian troops. Only three
days after the beginning of the operation, the Georgian forces began their hasty
retreat from South Ossetia, which soon degenerated into the erstwhile attackers
fleeing as fast as they could towards Tbilisi, leaving a large quantity of arms and
equipment behind. The ensuing mobilization of reserves, in line with the Total
Defense doctrine, failed to stop the rout. The reserves were poorly trained, their
morale was low, and there were not enough trained commanders to lead them.
Meanwhile Russian aviation lost more airplanes to friendly fire than to Georgian
air defense. Behind the veneer of annual military parades, the entire Georgian
military machine was extremely disorganized, poorly led and completely
unprepared for a serious conflict. For all Saakashvilis efforts, his army has failed
to become a modern and effective fighting force, capable of standing its ground
before the armed forces of a great world power. Picking a fight with Russia turned
out to be a big and costly mistake.
1
Rusadze N. National Guards Day // Defence Today, 6, 2007. P.1.
2
Georgian Defense Ministry web site: www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=5&sm=2.
3
Darchiashvili D. Georgia: Hostage to Arms // Caucasus: Armed and Divided //
www.abkhaziya.org/books/kavkaz_lsw/georgia.html.
4
Ibid.
5
Strategic Defence Review. Ministry Defence of Georgia, Tbilisi, 2007. P.98.
6
US Embassy in Tbilisi news page of May 2, 2002; May 8, 2003; September 1, 2003; December 13,
2003; January 17, 2004; April 21, 2004 // georgia.usembassy.gov.
7
The History of Krtsanisi National Training Center // www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=5&sm=12&ssm=1.
8
Information about senior officials of the Defense Ministry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, armed services and
the National Guard on the web site of the Georgian Defense Ministry // www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=1
and the Georgian National Guard // guard.mod.gov.ge/en/mmartveloba.php.
9
UN and SIPRI data bases // disarmament.un.org/UN_REGISTER.NSF
and armstrade.sipri.org/arms_trade/trade_register.php.
10
www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=3&sm=1 and Strategic Defence Review. Ministry Defence of Georgia, Tbilisi,
2007. P.66.
11
Strategic Defence Review. Ministry Defence of Georgia, Tbilisi, 2007. P.66-67.
12
www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=3&sm=3 and Strategic Defence Review. Ministry Defence of Georgia, Tbilisi,
2007. P.67.
13
Strategic Defence Review. Ministry Defence of Georgia, Tbilisi, 2007.
14
www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=3&sm=2.
15
16
17
Kakabadze E. Khaki Reform // Ogonek, No 21, 2008.
18
Interview with V. Makharidze, head of the Georgian Defense Ministrys financial department //
Defence Today, No 3, 2007 - P.2.
19
Strategic Defense Review. Ministry of Defence of Georgia, Tbilisi, 2007. P.87.
20
21
Defense news from Georgia // Zarubezhnoye Voennoye Obozreniye, No 12, 2004 P.21.
22
23
Strategic Defence Review. Ministry Defence of Georgia, Tbilisi, 2007. P.87-89.
24
25
Georgian parliament approves increase of the army's size //
www.newsgeorgia.ru/geo1/20070914/42050848.html.
26
Arabuli M. Recruitment for V Infantry Brigade Underway // Defence Today, 6, 2007. P.1.
27
Georgian Defense Ministry news page // www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=11&sm=0&id=871.
28
Georgian Defense Ministry news page // www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=11&sm=0&id=1013.
29
Strategic Defence Review // Ministry Defence of Georgia, Tbilisi, 2007. P.86.
30
Ibid. P.87.
31
Ibid. P.89.
32
Interview with V. Makharidze, head of the Georgian Defense Ministrys financial department //
Defence Today, No 3, 2007 P.2.
33
Georgian Defense Ministry web site // www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=11&sm=0&id=835.
34
35
New Reserve Training and Management Concept, 2007. P.4.
36
Georgian National Guard web site // www.guard.mod.gov.ge/en/iuridiuli.php.
37
Structure of the Georgian National Guard // guard.mod.gov.ge/en/struqtura.php.
38
News reports about the 420
th
reserve tank battalion of May 6, 2008 and May 25, 2008 //
guard.mod.gov.ge/en/news_list.php.
39
40
Ibid P. 87-90.
41
Ibid P. 86-90.
42
Georgian Defense Ministry 2008 Budget // www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=6.
43
Georgian National Defense Academy curriculum // www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=5&sm=12&ssm=2&ac
m=4&acsm=1 // and news page of the Georgian Defense Ministry, reports of August 3, 2006; April 2,
2007; April 18, 2007; May 17, 2007; May 28, 2007; July 26, 2007; November 3, 2007 //
www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=1.
44
Georgian Defense Ministry web site, news reports of November 2, 2007 and April 8, 2008 //
www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=1.
45
Ibid. News reports of August 22, 2005; December 23, 2005; February 2, 2007; July 27, 2008
and February 8, 2008.
46
Graduation Ceremony of Captain Career Courses 29.02.2008 //
www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=11&sm=0&id=863.
47
Georgian Defense Ministry web site, news reports of December 16, 2005; January 27, 2006; March 24,
2006, July 17, 2006, September 1, 2006, September 29, 2006, October 13, 2006, December 21, 2006,
January 26, 2007; April 14, 2007; April 20, 2007; June 15, 2007.
48
The History of Sachkhere Mountain-Training School // www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=5&sm=12&ssm=3.
49
Chonishvili . Communications Battalion Training Center Opened in Saguramo // Defence Today, 3,
2007. .1, 3.
50
Londaridze Sh. Georgian Pilots Trained in Ukraine // Defence Today, 11, 2008. P.4.
51
New Reserve Training and Management Concept, 2007. P.22.
52
Ibid.
53
54
Georgian Defense Ministry 2008 Budget // www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=6.
55
56
Ibid.
57
Ibid.
58
Military Grant Agreement with the Hellenic Republic 18.06.2007 //
- www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=11&sm=0&id=617.
59
60
Statement by Ukrainian Defense Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov // Ukrainian MoD
web site www.mil.gov.ua/index.php?lang=ua&part=news&sub=read&id=12093 (June 5, 2008).
61
62
Aliev E.T. Arms Control in Georgia: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow // www.armscontrol.ru/pubs/
eta-georgia-061020.pdf // Also see text of the adapted CFE Treaty // dtirp.dtra.mil/tic/CFE/cfe_amend.
htm#art_01.
63
Topuria M. Trainings with Modernized Tanks // Defence Today, 8, 2008. P.4.
64
65
Russian Defense Ministry information // www.mil.ru/files/table_15_05.doc.
66
Ibid.
67
68
Arabuli M. Recruitment for V Infantry Brigade Underway // Defence Today, 6, 2007. P.1.
69
Tsimakuridze R. New Military Base in Gori // Defence Today, 7, 2008. P.1.
70
Kurashvili K. New Squadron HQ Building Opened // Defence Today, 4, 2007. P.2.
71
Darchiashvili D. Georgia Courts NATO, Strives For defence Overhaul //
www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav072600.shtml.
72
Minasyan S. Military-Technical Aspects of Regional Security and Arms Control in the South Caucasus //
Region, Noravank Foundation, No 2 (6), 2005.
73
Nichol J. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia: Security Issues and Implications for U.S.
Interests: CRS Report for Congress. - Congressional Research Service. The Library of Congress.
Updated August 1, 2006, with reference to official data of the US Department of State.
74
Ibid.
75
Krasnaya Zvezda, Octover 8, 2007.
76
US Department of State information // www.state.gov/t/pm/64766.htm.
77
Minasyan S. Military-Technical Aspects of Regional Security and Arms Control in the South Caucasus //
Region, Noravank Foundation, No 2 (6), 2005.
36
Timeline of Russian-Georgian Hostilities
in August 2008
Introduction
Mikhail Saakashvili came to power on the back of several key promises,
including a speedy return of his countrys separatist regions of Abkhazia,
Adjaria and South Ossetia to the Georgian fold. That promise caused a further
deterioration in relations between Tbilisi and the three breakaway territories.
Adjaria was soon reintegrated into Georgia by peaceful means, although those
means were backed by the threat of force. But an attempt to repeat that scenario
with South Ossetia led to an armed confrontation involving the Georgian
Army, the South Ossetian troops and militia, and Peacekeeping Forces. Clashes
in August 2004 led to casualties on both sides. Georgia sent tanks and heavy
armor to the border regions of the unrecognized republic, and seized a number
of disputed heights. At least 16 Georgian soldiers died in the ensuing clashes.
The Russian peacekeepers in the republic could do little, after the Georgian
Defense Ministry threatened in no uncertain terms to use force against them if
they tried to intervene.
Nevertheless, the 2004 clashes in South Ossetia ended before they could
spiral into an outright war. The Georgian leadership well realized that its troops
Anton Lavrov
38 Anton Lavrov
did not have clear superiority even over that small separatist region at the time.
And the South Ossetians had demonstrated beyond any doubt their readiness
to fight for their independence. Any attempt to retake the region by force would
inevitably have led to a long and bloody conflict. As for Abkhazia, it was the
stronger of the two remaining breakaway republics, so Georgias chances of
bringing it to heel by force were even more remote.
Eventually Georgia withdrew its troops from South Ossetia, and only a
small part of the lands seized during the conflict remained under Georgian
control. The government in Tbilisi decided to concentrate on reforming the
army and bolstering its fighting ability before taking on the separatists. In
the years that followed, the Saakashvili administration pulled off a radical
transformation of the Georgian armed forces. Military spending shot up,
reaching 8 per cent of GDP in 2007-2008. Conscription was phased out and
replaced by fully professional service. A massive arms procurement program
was rolled out, which included more than a hundred T-72 tanks, dozens of
heavy artillery, more than 200 light armored vehicles, and several attack and
transport helicopters. Georgia also bought advanced Israeli-made UAVs, which
enabled it to monitor the entire territory of the unrecognized republics from the
air. In addition to that, it began training a large force of reserves, adding 25,000
people to their number every year in an effort to bring the overall size of the
reserve to 100,000 people.
The reformed Georgian army had an impressive combat training program,
with large-scale military exercises. The scenario almost always involved offensive
operations, with large numbers of heavy armor and artillery. The Georgian
command expected that once the regular separatist troops had been crushed, it
would have to deal with insurgency in the separatist territories, so the training
program placed heavy emphasis on counterinsurgency operations.
The United States provided valuable assistance in training the Georgian
troops. Tbilisi had agreed to send a large force to Iraq, so the United States
rolled out a large training program focusing on counterinsurgency. Those
skills were later used very successfully during combat operations in Iraq. But
they were not very relevant to waging conventional warfare against another
countrys army. The training program did not include the use of artillery, armor
or aviation in large-scale operations. Nor did it prepare the Georgian troops to
hold their ground against a stronger adversary.
Meanwhile, the Georgian secret services were working flat out to collect
intelligence information in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Apart from traditional
human intelligence-gathering, they relied heavily on technology. The Georgian
electronic reconnaissance service monitored cell phone conversations in the
whole of South Ossetia and part of Abkhazia. The UAVs bought from Israel
were on routine patrols, gathering intelligence on the separatist troops and
military infrastructure, as well as on the Russian peacekeepers stationed in
the two breakaway regions. The UAVs were also used to collect footage of key
cities, the Inguri hydroelectric power plant, bridges, tunnels, ports, etc. High-
resolution satellite imagery of the key areas was bought from foreign commercial
providers. The Georgians used it to monitor the construction of the bases of the
Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia and to develop detailed map-boards for
future offensive operations.
The Georgian Peacekeeping Force in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone
consisted of regular Georgian Army units. That was used as an opportunity
for Georgian solders to study the area where they would be expected to fight
later on. To make sure that as many soldiers as possible could make use of that
opportunity, there were very frequent rotations of the Georgian peacekeeping
contingent. Instead of the six months stipulated in the agreements on the
peacekeeping forces in the region, the Georgian battalions would sometimes be
rotated after only about a month.
Apart from modernizing the armed forces, the government made a priority
of developing and training the militarized and special task force units of the
Interior Ministry. Several special task squads were formed to fight against the
separatists. The Interior Ministry was given light armored vehicles, artillery
and UAVs (including the Israeli-made Elbit Hermes 450 drones). Part of the
reason for that strategy was to circumvent the restrictions on stationing army
units in and around the conflict zones. It was the Georgian Interior Ministrys
militarized formations that had been causing the most trouble on the border
prior to the August 2008 conflict.
Meanwhile, the armies of Abkhazia and South Ossetia were stagnating at
best. Unable to procure heavy arms from the outside or to keep their existing
equipment in good working order, the two breakaway regions had to contend
with a gradual degradation of their military capability. And while Abkhazia
still managed to maintain a moderately useful regular army, South Ossetia
had to rely almost entirely on militia armed with little more than small arms
and mortars. By 2008, the entire South Ossetian tank strength had dwindled
to a combined company of the hopelessly obsolete T-55s (about 10 of them in
total). The regions heavy artillery strength was limited to a handful of the 2S3
Akatsiya and 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers, and a few towed guns.
There were also up to ten multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), with a very
limited stockpile of ammo.
It soon became obvious that the balance of power in the region had shifted.
The Abkhaz Army and the small armed forces of the sparsely populated South
Ossetia no longer had any real hope of fending off a Georgian assault on their
own. The small and lightly armed Russian Peacekeeping Force (500 soldiers in
South Ossetia and 2,300 in Abkhazia) was no longer a match for the Georgian
40 Anton Lavrov
army, either. It became clear that the only way to defend the two unrecognized
republics if Georgia tried to retake them by force would be for the Russian
Army to intervene very directly.
Russian armed forces in the region ahead of the conflict
Amid growing tensions between Russia and Georgia, and the continuing
improvement of the Georgian military capability, the Russian top brass began
to consider an armed conflict with Georgia over the separatist region a distinct
possibility. Nevertheless, no special preparations were being made for a possible war.
It was expected that in the event of a conflict, the forces stationed in the region the
North Caucasus Military District formations, the Airborne Assault Troops and the
4
th
Air Force and Air Defense Army would be able to cope on their own.
The North Caucasus Military District has some of Russias most competent troops,
thanks largely to the years of conflict in Chechnya and the neighboring regions. The
Districts forces have gained valuable combat experience fighting the local insurgents
and terrorists. They have also undergone serious structural transformations. It is in
the North Caucasus Military District that the Russian Army has made the most
progress in switching to the brigade structure. Two new mountain motorized rifle
brigades had been formed in Dagestan and Karachayevo-Cherkessiya by the time the
war with Georgia began. Many of the formations stationed in the region maintained
permanent combat-ready status. Each of the permanently combat-ready regiments
was capable of fielding a combat-ready battalion-size tactical group (about a third of
the regiments strength) within 24 hours.
The North Caucasus Military District also had the largest share of
professional soldiers (as opposed to conscripts) compared to the other districts.
The 42
nd
Motorized Rifle Division stationed in Chechnya was the only division
in the entire Russian Army fully deployed under a wartime manning chart and
staffed only by professional soldiers.
But for all their experience of real combat, the Districts units had to make
do with old and obsolete equipment. The prospect of an armed conflict with
Georgia did not really change the situation. The District lacked any first-
class heavy weapons. The most advanced tanks it could field were the slightly
upgraded versions of the T-72s, scattered in small numbers across several tank
units. None of those units had any T-80 or T-90 tanks. The 42
nd
Motorized
Rifle Division was given woefully obsolete T-62s, which were still usable for
counterinsurgency operations, but completely inadequate in any confrontation
with a serious adversary. Motorized infantry was in no better condition. Apart
from the BMP-2 and BTR-80 vehicles, which are themselves fairly aged, it was
still heavily reliant on the ancient BMP-1 and MT-LB.
The Russian 4
th
Air Force and Air Defense Army, which is stationed in the
North Caucasus region, had a lot of combat experience after the Chechen wars,
and large amounts of equipment. It included three fighter aviation regiments
and one fighter airbase in Armenia; two frontal bomber regiments, three
ground attack and one reconnaissance aviation regiment, plus three helicopter
regiments and one transport airbase. But very little of its equipment was new
or upgraded. Only the 487
th
Helicopter Regiment in Budennovsk had received
several upgraded Mi-24PN attack helicopters, and the 368
th
Attack Aviation
Regiment (also based in Budennovsk) had been given about 10 modernized
Su-25SM attack aircraft.
All those Russian forces may have been scattered all across the North
Caucasus Districts large territory, and their equipment may not have been brand
new but they were still far superior to the Georgian army, both in terms of
their numerical strength and their fighting ability. They could also be reinforced
by the highly mobile units of the Airborne Troops. The Russian government
and military commanders apparently believed that all this was sufficient to deter
Georgia from trying to use force against Abkhazia or South Ossetia.
In 2006 Russia began a series of large-scale military exercises in the North
Caucasus Military District. A demonstration of Russian force in the region for
Georgias benefit was certainly part of the reason for the decision. The largest of
those training events were the Caucasus Frontier 2006, the Caucasus Frontier
2007, and the Caucasus 2008. They were held during the summer as a series
of separate maneuvers by the 58
th
Army and the 4
th
Air Force and Air Defense
Army stationed in the region. They also involved units of the Airborne Troops
and the Russian Black Sea Fleet. As usual, the Airborne Troops were represented
by one battalion-size tactical group of the 76
th
Airborne Assault Division from
Pskov and units of the 7
th
Airborne Assault Division based in Novorossiysk.
The scale of the exercises was increasing every year. The Caucasus 2008
event involved 10,000 servicemen and hundreds of tanks and pieces of armor.
Meanwhile, tensions in Abkhazia had reached a critical point in the first
half of 2008, following a series of incidents involving Georgian UAVs crossing
into Abkhaz airspace, and with Georgian troops amassing on the Abkhaz
border. The Russian forces were involved in shooting down three Georgian
Hermes 450 drones at the time.
Russia had to bolster its Peacekeeping Force in Abkhazia, bringing its size
to the agreed ceiling of 3,000 servicemen. In addition to the three motorized
rifle battalions already deployed in the region (the 42
nd
Independent Motorized
Rifle Battalion of the 15
th
Samara Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade,
526
th
and 558
th
Independent Motorized Rifle Battalions of the 131
st
Maykop
Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade), Russia sent another battalion-size
tactical group. It belonged to the 108
th
Airborne Assault Regiment of the 7
th

Novorossiysk Airborne Assault Division. The peacekeeping force was also
reinforced by two army Spetsnaz companies. Units of the Russian Railway
42 Anton Lavrov
Troops were also brought in for a period to complete the repairs of the railway
track between Sukhumi and Ochamchira. The railway could be used to speed
up the deployment of Russian reinforcements in Abkhazia in the event of an
armed conflict.
In contrast to all the activity in Abkhazia, no significant Russian troop
movements had been reported in South Ossetia or the Russian border regions
in the period before the war in August 2008. The Caucasus 2008 exercise
involved more troops than the previous years event, but on the whole, it was not
much different from all the previous exercises. The only notable change was a
somewhat greater emphasis placed on Abkhazia by the Russian commanders.
For the first time, the scenario of the exercise included the landing of a marine
company from a large assault-landing ship onto the beach of the Imereti lowlands
near Sochi, only a few miles away from the Russian border with Abkhazia. Also
unusual was the relocation of a small number of Su-24M front-line bombers to
the Sochi Airport, from where they took off for several training flights.
Apart from the large annual exercises, Russia also held numerous smaller
training events in the region. During the frequent political bust-ups with
Georgia or growing military tensions in the areas close to the breakaway
regions borders, Russia would also hold unscheduled training events. They
would usually involve the deployment of a small Russian force in the immediate
vicinity of the South Ossetian border, from where it could rush to the aid of
the Russian peacekeepers in the breakaway republic in the event of a sudden
Georgian attack.
The plans of the two sides
The main focus of the Georgian plans of attack against South Ossetia in
2008 was to advance very quickly deep into the regions territory. Using the
overwhelming superiority of its beefed-up army, Tbilisi hoped to crush the
main South Ossetian force as quickly as possible, occupy the capital Tskhinvali,
and block the Trans-Caucasus Motorway to prevent the arrival of volunteers
from Russia. Speed was the utmost priority of the entire operation, with the
aim of seizing all the main South Ossetian towns and villages within three or
four days. Tbilisi would then install a Georgian administration led by Dmitriy
Sanakoev in Tskhinval, and announce that Georgia was back in control of
the breakaway region. After that it could proceed to crushing any remaining
pockets of resistance, one by one. Some 40,000 reserves, whose training was due
to be completed by the time the war began, would be involved in maintaining
Georgian occupation of the territory and conducting counterinsurgency
operations.
The offensive against South Ossetia would involve large forces of the
Georgian Defense Ministry and the Ministry of Interior. One infantry brigade
was to occupy the village of Khetagurovo, west of Tskhinvali. Another was to
take the Prisi heights and the villages of Dmenis and Sarabuk to the east of the
South Ossetian capital. The two brigades would then go around Tskhinvali
and meet near the village of Gufta, blockading the capital from all sides. Then
they would move quickly towards Djava and the Roki tunnel, so as to prevent
any reinforcements from coming into South Ossetia. Meanwhile, units of the
Interior Ministry and army special task force squads, supported by artillery and
tanks, would take Tskhinvali and conduct a clean-up operation. The Artillery
Brigade was to provide fire cover at every stage of the offensive. Small groups of
Georgian Army, the size of a battalion, were to strike at the secondary targets:
the Leninogorsk and Znaur districts, and the village of Kvaysa.
The main weakness of the Georgian plan was that it completely overlooked
the possibility of the Russian armys intervention in the conflict. There appeared
to be no preparations at all for a possible confrontation with the Russian troops.
Neither had the Georgians taken any reasonable precautions to provide air
defense cover for their attacking forces, even using the existing air defense
capability. Soldiers had received no information to the effect that a clash with
the Russian troops was a possibility. It is not at all clear why the Georgian
Government was so confident that Russia would stand aloof.
Tbilisi may have hoped that by offering Moscow safety guarantees for the
Russian peacekeepers in the republic, Georgia could either prevent or at least
delay Russias involvement. The expectation was apparently for Moscow to
try diplomacy first. Once that failed, authorizing the use of force and troop
deployment would take several days, by which time most of the South Ossetian
territory and settlements, as well as the strategic Roki tunnel, would have
been under Georgian control, making any Russian attempts to intervene quite
pointless.
Russia, meanwhile, was well aware of the Georgian plans for an attack against
South Ossetia. The only crucial detail it did not know was the precise date of the
operation. The political decision to protect the vulnerable republic in the event
of a Georgian offensive was therefore made well in advance. There was a clear
possibility of the entire South Ossetian territory being occupied within days: its
territory was small, its armed forces weak, and its capital very vulnerable, being
located right on the border with Georgia. The large Georgian enclaves within the
republic were another factor in Georgias favor. The Russian military command
therefore made certain preparations so as to be able to come to the aid of South
Ossetia as soon as possible once the Georgian offensive began.
After the completion of the Caucasus 2008 exercise, a small Russian force
consisting of two reinforced motorized rifle battalions remained near the border
with South Ossetia. Its task was to enter the republics territory within hours of
Georgia launching an offensive, and help the Russian peacekeepers. Backed by
44 Anton Lavrov
Russian aviation, it was to prevent the Georgian troops from advancing deep
into South Ossetia until the arrival of large reinforcements from Russia. The
nearest Russian units maintaining permanent combat readiness status would
take 24 to 48 hours to reach the republic. If necessary, highly mobile airborne
troops would also be deployed. Additional Russian troops would be sent to
Abkhazia as a precaution in the event of a conflict.
As a result of all those preparations, Russia was able to enter the fray
within hours of the Georgian offensive. Georgias best-laid battle plains,
which discounted the possibility of Russian involvement, were in ruins. The
Georgian military command was forced to improvise, while the Russian plans
for defending the two republics worked out very well. Thanks to the experience
gained during the numerous exercises in the region, the Russian permanent-
readiness troops were able to deploy without a hitch in real battle conditions.
Timeline of the combat operations
1-7 August
The intensity of sporadic exchanges of fire between Georgian and South
Ossetian villages in July 2008 was much higher than usual at that time every
year. But the real escalation did not begin until August. The countdown to the
war may have started on August 1. A Georgian olice pickup truck, a Toyota
Hilux, was blown up at 0800 by an improvised explosive device planted on the
side of a detour road between Georgia proper and a Georgian enclave to the
north of Tskhinvali. Five policemen were injured. The Georgians had no doubt
that the South Ossetian separatists were responsible.
At 1817 of the same day, snipers of the Georgian Interior Ministry's special
task force retaliated by attacking the border checkpoints of the South Ossetian
Interior Ministry. Four Ossetians were killed and seven injured, most of them
South Ossetian Interior Ministry servicemen. On the night of August 1-2, heavy
exchanges of fire broke out across the border. The sides used grenade launchers
and mortars. The number of Ossetian casualties rose to six, including one solider
of the North Ossetian eacekeeper Battalion. The number of injured reached 15,
including several civilians. On the Georgian side, six civilians and one policeman
were injured. Those were the heaviest losses in one day since the 2004 conflict.
Amid this rapid escalation, the South Ossetian Government ordered the
evacuation of women and children from Tskhinvali and the village of Dmenis
close to the border with Georgia. Organized convoys of evacuees began to
arrive in Russia in the morning of August 2. Many South Ossetians fled to
safer places within the republic.
Despite the deterioration in South Ossetia, the large-scale Russian military
exercise in the region, the Caucasus 2008, ended on August 2, as previously
scheduled. Most of the Russian troops which took part in the event were withdrawn
to their permanent bases. On the same day, the battalion-size tactical group of
the 76
th
Airborne Assault Divisions 104
th
Airborne Assault Regiment began its
withdrawal from the border with South Ossetia back to its base in Pskov. Its
soldiers were flown back home, and the equipment followed by railway.
Only a small Russian force remained near the South Ossetian border, in a
field camp struck at the North Caucasus Military Districts training range near
the Mamison pass. Its job, as usual, was to provide contingency cover for the
Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia during the latest bout of tensions between
Russia and Georgia. The Russian force included two reinforced motorized rifle
battalions: one belonging to the 135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 19
th

Motorized Rifle Division, the other to the 693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment
of the same division. Its total strength was 1,500 servicemen, fourteen T-72B
main battle tanks, and sixteen 2S3 Akatsiya 152 mm self-propelled howitzers.
The mountain training range, which is only 30km away from the Roki tunnel,
is a very convenient hideout for assembling troops. From there, they can quickly
be moved to South Ossetia. There are no large settlements anywhere near the
range, and it is situated well away from the Trans-Caucasus motorway, so any
troop movement can remain relatively unnoticed. Russia also had nine BM-21
Grad MLR systems at a smaller training range near Kesatikau, which is even
closer to the Roki tunnel.
Amid the escalation in early August, the Russian Peacekeeper Force in
South Ossetia was put on the highest state of alert. The period of August 2-5
was relatively quiet, with only a few sporadic exchanges of small arms fire. But
on August 6, the exchanges intensified. Mortar and small arms fire continued
from both sides all through the night of August 6-7. Fourteen people were
injured in Tskhinvali, most of them peaceful civilians, and another four in the
neighboring South Ossetian villages.
In the afternoon of August 6, the Georgian Army was put on high alert.
The Georgian government had decided to launch an armed offensive against
the breakaway republic. It set up an operational command led by the Army
commander, which quickly approved the overall plan of the operation and began
issuing orders for troop movements. On the night of August 6-7, the 3
rd
and 4
th

Infantry Brigades were ordered to move to the border with South Ossetia, and
instructed as to the overall objectives, tasks and plans of the operation. At 0100
on August 7, Georgia also began partial mobilization of reserves. On the same
night, Russian peacekeeper stations reported that several Georgian UAVs had
crossed into South Ossetia in the direction of Djava.
On August 7, Georgia began evacuating women and children from the
village of Ergneti near the border with South Ossetia. Georgian peacekeepers
and police forces started to advance into the disputed territories and seized
several strategic heights there, which they immediately began to fortify. That
46 Anton Lavrov
triggered new exchanges of fire. At 1400, the South Ossetian forces hit a
Georgian BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle near the Georgian border village of
Avnevi. The vehicle sustained a direct hit from a mortar and was completely
destroyed. Two Georgian servicemen of the 1
st
Infantry Brigade were killed and
another five injured. They were on peacekeeping duty at the time. At 1430,
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili issued an order to begin preparations
for an attack against South Ossetia. The Georgian Army began to enact its
well-prepared plans for an offensive and advance towards the border.
Exchanges of fire continued on August 7 between the South Ossetian
positions near the village of Khetagurovo and the Georgian villages of Avnevi
and Nuli. Both sides used small arms, grenade launchers and mortars. Exchanges
also continued between the Georgian enclaves and Tskhinvali, but with less
intensity. At 1545, Georgian army units opened fire at targets in Khetagurovo
and the southern fringes of Tskhinvali. Using self-propelled artillery and tanks,
they suppressed South Ossetian firing positions near Khetagurovo. The use of
heavy armor and artillery by the Georgian forces signaled a sharp escalation of
the conflict. The Russian troops at the training ranges near the South Ossetian
border were put on high alert.
At 1700, the Georgian peacekeepers left the HQ of the Joint Peacekeeping
Forces in Tskhinvali and the joint checkpoints around the city upon receiving
orders to that effect from their command.
Late in the afternoon, exchanges of fire started to wane from both sides.
At 1936, Mikhail Saakashvili made a televised address to announce a unilateral
ceasefire. Only sporadic exchanges of small arms fire continued in the next several
hours. But the movement of Georgian Army and Interior Ministry forces towards
the conflict zone continued as before. Georgian troops were taking up positions
for an offensive. From their vantage points on the summits around Tskhinvali,
Russian peacekeepers and South Ossetian armed forces saw large convoys of the
Georgian Army advancing towards the border. At 2300, the assembly of the
main Georgian attacking force at the border was complete. The assembly plans
had been executed quickly and efficiently. As a result, dozens of Georgian tanks,
heavy artillery and MLR systems had been amassed in the Georgian sector of the
border zone, in contravention of the ban on heavy arms in the area.
On the left flank of the Georgian attacking force was the 4
th
Infantry
Brigade from Vaziani (a Tbilisi suburb), which was to take the Khetagurovo
village by storm, then cut off the Zarskaya detour road and occupy Ossetian
villages to the west of Khetagurovo. The brigade would then take the Zarskaya
road to the Gufta village and the strategic Gufta bridge. The 3
rd
Infantry
Brigade from Kutaisi was given the left flank, to the east of Tskhinvali. Its
main force had amassed on the border by the morning of August 8, and its tank
battalion had arrived by noon. The 3
rd
Brigade was to storm the Prisi heights, as
well as the villages of Dmenis and Sarabuk, then go around Tskhinvali towards
the Georgian enclaves in the Bolshoy Liakhvi gorge and on to the village of
Gufta, where it would meet the 4
th
Infantry Brigade and thus complete the
encirclement of Tskhinvali.
The center of the attacking force, which was to storm Tskhinvali itself, consisted
of various militarized special task force units of the Georgian Interior Ministry,
armed with several dozen light armored vehicles (mainly the Cobra armored
vehicles with 12.7mm machine guns and 40mm automatic grenade launchers).
They were supported by a Independent Combined Tank Battalion from Gori, the
Georgian Special Operations Group and an Independent Light Infantry Battalion
of the Georgian Defense Ministry (the former Marines battalion).
The reserve of the attacking Georgian force consisted of the 53
rd
Light
Infantry Battalion of the 5
th
Infantry Brigade from Khoni. The Georgian
Peacekeeper Battalion was stationed in the immediate vicinity of Tskhinvali.
It included the 11
th
Light Infantry Battalion of the 1
st
Infantry Brigade (its
two other light infantry battalions were in Iraq at the time) and a mechanized
company of the Independent Combined Tank Battalion. The 1
st
Infantry
Brigades artillery battalion was also taking part in the offensive, as did the self-
propelled artillery and MLR systems of the Artillery Brigade stationed in Gori.
The Artillery Brigades artillery spotter posts had been deployed on vantage
points around Tskhinvali and in the villages of the Georgian enclave well in
advance of the offensive.
On the western borders of South Ossetia the Georgians had two small
groups of forces. They were to attack from the weakly defended flank, seize the
town of Kvaysa and try to advance towards the Djava settlement so as to cut
off the Trans-Caucasus Motorway and maybe even seize the Roki tunnel. In
the area of the Perevi settlement, the offensive was to be led by an Independent
Combined Mountain Rifle Battalion and a Police special task force squad, and
near Kvaysa by a Combined Battalion of the Interior Ministrys Constitutional
Security Department.
The overall strength of the Georgian Army group amassed near the South
Ossetian border by the morning of August 8 was about 12,000 soldiers and 75
T-72 main battle tanks. The Interior Ministry forces had an additional 4,000
people and 70 Cobra armored vehicles. Only the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade remained
at its base in Senaki so as to cover western Georgia in the event of the Abkhaz
Army opening a second front. But in the evening of August 7, the Georgian
command decided to move that brigade towards Tskhinvali as well. Part of
the 5
th
Infantry Brigade and units of the Georgian Interior Ministry were left
behind to hold the Kodori Gorge.
At 2330 on August 7, the Georgian Army received orders to open fire.
At about 2335, the Georgian Artillery Brigade and artillery batteries of the
48 Anton Lavrov
infantry brigades began to soften up the targets in South Ossetia by shelling
command facilities in Tskhinvali, previously reconnoitered defensive positions
of the South Ossetian forces, the city itself and the neighboring villages. They
were using mortars, self-propelled and towed artillery of the 122 mm, 152 mm
and 203 mm caliber, and 122 mm and 160 mm MLR systems.
At 2345, the Commander of the Joint Peacekeeping Force in South Ossetia,
Russian Maj Gen Marat Kulakhmetov, had a telephone conversation with the
Commander of peacekeeping operations of the Georgian Joint Staff, Brigade
General Mamuka Kurashvili. The latter informed the Russian commander
about the beginning of the Georgian military operation. According to some
reports, Kurashvili offered the Russian peacekeepers safety guarantees in return
for not intervening in the situation or trying to stop the Georgian offensive.
August 8
South Ossetia
The South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali and its neighboring villages came under
heavy fire from more than a hundred pieces of artillery and mortars, and more than
30 MLR systems. The Georgians attempted to deliver surgical strikes, targeting a
list of command and military facilities to be destroyed. But insufficient accuracy
of their fire led to serious damage to residential areas and civilian buildings.
Almost the entire territory of the city came under heavy shelling. Some of the
Georgian shells overshot the city completely and landed well to the north of it, in
the villages of the Georgian enclave, including Tamarasheni.
At first, the Russian peacekeepers in the city were not specifically targeted by
Georgian artillery - but a few stray shells did cause some damage. At 0003, one
of them landed on the territory of the Joint Peacekeeping Force HQ. At 0045,
the Upper Compound of the Russian peacekeepers was hit. The peacekeepers
observation posts near the Georgian border started taking sporadic small arms
and mortar fire from the very first minutes of the conflict.
At about 0030, the Commander of peacekeeping operations of the Georgian
Joint Staff, Brigade General Mamuka Kurashvili, made a statement for the
media. He accused South Ossetia of continuing to fire at Georgian villages.
He therefore announced that Georgia was no longer bound by its unilateral
ceasefire declared only a few hours earlier, and launching an operation to
restore constitutional order in the conflict zone.
At 0040, artillery of the Georgian 4
th
Infantry Brigade began to pound targets
inside Khetagurovo ahead of the ground offensive. At 0100, the brigades 41
st

and 42
nd
Light Infantry Battalions began their attack, quickly took the village of
Muguti without encountering any resistance, and after a short battle with a much
weaker Ossetian force took Khetagurovo by storm. Meanwhile, the Brigades 43
rd

Battalion advanced into South Ossetia to the west of Tskhinvali and proceeded
on foot towards the district center of Znaur. It did not encounter any resistance
and quickly occupied several Ossetian border villages of the Znaur District.
At about the same time, Georgian forces crossed into South Ossetia in the
remote Leninogorsk (Akhalgorsk) District, which has long been a subject of a
territorial dispute between Georgia and the breakaway republic. The attacking
force consisted of small special task squads of the Georgian Interior Ministry.
The South Ossetians had almost no fortifications or armed soldiers in this
sparsely populated district, so the Georgians were able to occupy several villages
here very quickly and without a fight.
Almost immediately after the beginning of massive Georgian shelling of
South Ossetia, at 0100 on August 8, the Russian General Staff ordered the
troops deployed at the training ranges near the Ossetian border to march
towards the Roki tunnel. Within half an hour of receiving the orders, the two
battalion-size tactical groups of the 19
th
Motorized Rifle Divisions 693
rd
and
135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiments were on the move.
At about 0100, the Russian Defense Minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov, was on
the phone with President Dmitry Medvedev to report about the beginning of
the Georgian offensive. It seems likely that during that phone conversation, the
president authorized the Russian Army to cross into South Ossetia. At 0200
on August 8, the first Russian armor of the 693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiments
battalion-size tactical group crossed into South Ossetia. It was soon followed by
the battalion tactical group of the 135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiment.
According to the initial plans, the two reinforced battalions were to take under
their control the road from the Roki tunnel to Tskhinvali, and ensure safe entry
into the republic of additional Russian troops, which would then counterattack
and repel the Georgian offensive. The battalion group of the 693
rd
Motorized
Rifle Regiment would hold the stretch of the road between the tunnel and Djava,
and forces of the 135
th
Regiment the stretch between Djava and Tskhinval.
After crossing into South Ossetia via the Roki tunnel, the Russian troops
continued towards Djava. The reconnaissance company of the 693
rd
Motorized
Rifle Regiment was left behind to hold the southern end of the tunnel. Individual
motorized rifle platoons were positioned at key points along the road as the rest
of the group advanced deeper into South Ossetia.
At 0300, the 19
th
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment,
which was at its home base in Troitskoye, and several other units of the North
Caucasus Military District were put on high alert. The same orders were given
to units of the 42
nd
Motorized Rifle Division stationed in Chechnya, including
its 70
th
and 71
st
Motorized Rifle Regiments and the 50
th
Self-Propelled Artillery
Regiment. The battalion tactical group of the 76
th
Pskov Airborne Assault
Divisions 104
th
Airborne Assault Regiment, which had returned from the exercise
in North Ossetia only the day before, also received marching orders.
50 Anton Lavrov
Meanwhile, the Georgian side also began to ramp up its attacking force. At
about midnight, the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade, which was initially told to remain at
its base in Senaki, not far from Abkhazia, was ordered into the conflict zone. At
0300, the Georgian government announced general mobilization of the reserve.
The military enlistment offices started phoning the reserves, of which Georgia
had 45,000 by the time the war began.
After shelling Tskhinvali for several hours, the Georgian forces began to
advance towards the city. The small South Ossetian artillery forces and mortars
opened fire at the Georgian troops amassed near the village of Zemo-Nikozi,
but they were poorly organized and ineffective, managing only to slow the
Georgian offensive. The Ossetian MLR systems also failed to inflict any
significant damage or silence Georgian artillery. The South Ossetian forces
were joined by several armored vehicles belonging to the Alaniya Peacekeeper
Battalion manned by North Ossetians. One of the battalions BMP-2 infantry
fighting vehicles was destroyed near the village of Tbet.
At 0400, Georgian troops approached the city and joined battle with small
armed groups of the South Ossetian Defense Ministry and other law-enforcement
agencies, as well as the local militia, which tried to slow the Georgian advance.
At first, the Georgian tanks provided fire cover to the infantry without entering
the city, pounding the Ossetian firing positions from a distance.
At dawn, the Georgian forces amassed on the western borders of South
Ossetia also began their attack. The special task force units of the Georgian
Interior Ministrys Constitutional Security Department tried to enter Kvaysa, but
encountered stiff resistance from fortified positions manned by a platoon of the
South Ossetian Defense Ministry. Several Georgian soldiers were injured, and
the entire force withdrew back into Georgian territory. The Georgians mounted
no further attacks on this stretch for the rest of the war, firing only sporadically at
South Ossetian territory and the Kvaysa village from across the border.
In the morning of August 8, the Georgian Air Force moved three of
its Mi-24 attack helicopters from the Alekseevka airbase near Tbilisi to the
village of Kaspi, from where they were to provide air cover for the Georgian
offensive against Tskhinval. The forces amassed near Kaspi were ordered to
set up a forward base for the helicopters there, with a reserve of fuel and
ammunition.
The first groups of mobilized Georgian reserves started gathering at the
enlistment offices at 0500. From there they were ferried by buses to the military
bases, where they were issued weapons and ammunition. Then they were
brought to the conflict zone near the city of Gori. The greatest mobilization
effort was undertaken in the Gori region and the capital Tbilisi. In western
Georgia, mobilization proceeded at a slower pace; the reserves were assembled
at a military base in Senaki rather than being sent to South Ossetia.
At 0600, the Georgian 3
rd
Infantry Brigade began an offensive in the region
of Eredvi, to the east of Tskhinvali. Its three light infantry battalions began their
advance towards the large Ossetian village of Dmenis and the smaller settlement of
Sarabuki, conducting clean-up operations in the neighboring villages in the process
and seizing strategic vantage points. The brigade soon encountered resistance from
an Ossetian force, up to a single company in size, armed with grenade launchers
and mortars and firing from fortified positions at the Prisi heights.
Also at 0600, special task force units of the Georgian Interior Ministry
joined the offensive against Tskhinvali. Their path towards the city lay in the
immediate vicinity of the Russian peacekeepers Southern compound with
about 250 peacekeepers. After the Georgian forces approached the compound,
an exchange of fire broke out with the Russian peacekeepers, which slowed the
Georgian offensive. The Georgian Cobra armored vehicles opened fire at the
Russian compound from large-caliber machine guns. The Commander of the
Russian Peacekeeper Battalion ordered three BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles
to be positioned along the perimeter of the compound to prevent it from being
overrun by the attackers. The Georgians then requested several tanks to be sent
in from the Independent Combined Tank Battalion.
At 0630, the Russian peacekeepers sustained their first casualties after
three Georgian T-72 tanks of the Independent Combined Tank Battalion
approached the Southern compound on the outskirts of Tskhinvali and opened
fire. The very first tank shot destroyed an observation post on the roof of the
barracks, killing a Russian peacekeeper and a South Ossetian observer. The
tanks then hit all three BMP-1 vehicles of the peacekeeper battalion, which
were blocking the entrance to the camp. Five members of their crews were
killed: privates Gimatov, Marchenko, Polushkin, Shmyganovskiy and Yasko
of the 135
th
Motorized Infantry Regiment. One of the Georgian T-72s was hit
by a RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launcher. It got stuck in an irrigation canal about
300 meters from the compound and was abandoned by its crew. The other two
tanks then withdrew to a safe distance and continued firing at the compound.
They were soon joined by Georgian artillery and mortars.
Meanwhile, a Russian convoy consisting of the two already mentioned
battalion tactical groups reached Djava at 0630 and continued to Tskhinvali
without stopping. Its most urgent task was to block the Trans-Caucasus
Motorway north of the Georgian enclave and the Gufti bridge, as well as the
Zarskaya detour road. The goal was to prevent Georgian troops from quickly
reaching Djava and then the Roki tunnel, blocking the arrival of further Russian
reinforcements into the republic.
At about 0700, the convoy of the 693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment came
under a bombing raid by four Georgian Su-25 attack aircraft on the stretch of
the road between Djava and Tskhinvali. The aircraft were trying to destroy the
52 Anton Lavrov
strategically important Gufti bridge, which the South Ossetian and Russian
troops would need to reach Tskhinvali. But the Georgians were using unguided
250 kg bombs; there were several near misses but no direct hits. Neither the
bridge, nor the Russian convoy sustained any damage. Nevertheless, the attack
took the Russian vanguard force by surprise. It did not have any air defense
capability, and wasnt yet covered by fighter aviation. The Georgian aircraft
were therefore able to return to their base unharmed. After a short pause, the
Russian convoy continued its movement. Apart from the bridge, the Georgian
aviation also targeted a number of military installations, including a South
Ossetian army base near Djava and a parking lot where the North Ossetian
peacekeeper battalion kept its trucks and other equipment. Several homes were
destroyed in the neighboring villages during the raid. The pilots also informed
the Georgian command that a large convoy of troops and heavy armor was
moving towards Tskhinvali.
The Georgian aircraft returned to their base and began preparations for
another mission but it was cancelled after Russian aircraft were spotted in the
skies over North Ossetia. The Georgian command decided not to risk another
bombing raid as the defenseless Su-25 attack aircraft would be an easy target for
the Russian fighters now on patrol in the republics airspace. So as not to lose
their handful of combat airplanes and trained pilots, the Georgians spread the
Su-25s all over their home airfield and hid them under camouflage nets. The
planes did not take to the skies for the remainder of the armed conflict but
neither were any of them lost, even during the Russian bombing raids against
Georgian airbases.
On approach to the Gufti bridge the Russian 693
rd
Motorized Rifle
Regiment came under small arms fire from the Georgian enclave. The attackers
may have been a Georgian reconnaissance and sabotage team sent to destroy
the bridge or make it impassable. Russian tanks returned fire, and the adversary
offered no more resistance. But as the Russian convoy was crossing the bridge,
the No 005 BMP-2 vehicle had an engine failure and had to be pushed over the
side of the bridge into the river to let the rest of the convoy pass.
At 0745, Georgian tanks firing from the area of Zemo-Nikozi damaged
the medical station of the Russian peacekeepers Southern compound and
destroyed three ambulance trucks. At 0830 the medical station came under fire
once again and was completely destroyed, along with several other buildings on
the territory of the compound.
At 0800, a Georgian Combined Mountain Rifle Battalion and a special
police squad crossed into South Ossetia from the Perevi district on the breakaway
republics western border. That brought the number of directions of Georgian
attack against South Ossetia that morning to seven, along the entire length of
its border with Georgia. Near the Ossetian village of Sinaguri the Georgians
encountered resistance from the local militia, which they managed to overcome
only by 1400 on August 8. The attacking force moved a bit further inland but
was soon forced to halt at a blown-up bridge. There was no further combat
action in this area for the rest of the conflict.
By 1000 the Georgian Army had overcome pockets of resistance by the South
Ossetian forces and the Alaniya Battalion of North Ossetian peacekeepers
on the southern and southwestern approaches to Tskhinvali, and taken several
villages. The Georgian Interior Ministry force sent to seize Tskhinvali was still
struggling to enter the city. The Georgian command therefore ordered the 41
st

and 42
nd
Light Infantry Battalions, which had already taken Khetagurovo and
were holding the Zarskaya road, to join the Interior Ministry forces storming
Tskhinvali. Once they had arrived at the scene, the Georgians made another
attempt to take the South Ossetian capital.
Also by 1000, a fire that broke out in the Russian peacekeepers Southern
compound as a result of Georgian shelling had destroyed almost the entire fleet
of its cars and trucks, as well as several armored vehicles. The peacekeepers were
forced to take cover from constant shelling and small arms fire in the basement
of the barracks and in the boiler house. They were therefore unable to put up
much resistance or stop the Georgian troops entering Tskhinvali.
At about 1100, soldiers of the Georgian 4
th
Infantry Brigade entered the
city from the southwest, along the road leading to the village of Tbet. Georgian
Interior Ministry forces, backed by armored vehicles of the Independent
Combined Tank Battalion and soldiers of an Independent Light Infantry
Battalion, entered the city from the south, from the village of Zemo-Nikozi.
This time round they met with little resistance from the half-destroyed and
burning Russian peacekeeper base. Nevertheless, a force of Georgian troops was
brought in to encircle the base and isolate it from Tskhinvali. The peacekeepers
compound was essentially under a Georgian blockade.
Meanwhile, Georgian Army and Interior Ministry forces were moving
deeper into Tskhinvali along its central streets, setting up roadblocks and
gradually clearing the territory of any pockets of resistance. They were opposed
by small and uncoordinated squads of lightly armed South Ossetian special
task forces, police and militia, who had very limited stocks of ammo and anti-
tank weapons. Their main holdouts were apartment blocks in the southern and
southwestern areas of the city.
To the east of Tskhinvali, the Georgian offensive was also making steady
progress. By 1100 the 3
rd
Infantry Brigades battalions had taken fortified
Ossetian positions on the Kokhati hills, seizing several mortars along the way,
and approached the outskirts of the Dmenis village. But there they were slowed
down by South Ossetian forces fortified on the surrounding hills, and soon had
to take cover from the first Russian air raids.
54 Anton Lavrov
Shortly after 1000 on August 8, Russia began its bombing campaign against
Georgia. From the outset, Russian aviation pounded not only the advancing
Georgian troops around Tskhinval, but also targets deep inside Georgia. At
1030, it bombed the military base in Vaziani, which was used as the assembly
point for the reserves. Several people were injured. At 1057, Russian bombers
raided the Independent Combined Tank Battalions base in Gori.
In Tskhinvali, the largest (several dozen people) and best-equipped group of
South Ossetian armed services and militia was holding an area in the city center
around the Headquarters of the Joint Peacekeeping Force. It was led by the
Secretary of the South Ossetian Security Council, Gen Anatoliy Barankevich.
At about 1400, a Georgian T-72 tank, side number 406, belonging to the
Independent Combined Tank Battalion, approached the HQ of the Joint
Peacekeeping Force (North compound) on the intersection of the Moskovskaya
and Privokzalnaya Streets. There it was hit from an RPG-7 anti-tank rocket
launcher by Gen Barankevich. The rocket struck the rear of the turret, which
was not protected by reactive armor. The tanks ammunition detonated, and
it was completely destroyed along with its entire crew. Several minutes later
and on the same street, the South Ossetian militia hit another two T-72 tanks
belonging to the same Georgian battalion.
Almost simultaneously with the destruction of the three Georgian tanks,
a pair of Russian Su-25 attack aircraft raided the positions of the Georgian 4
th

Infantry Brigades 42
nd
Light Infantry Battalion, which was taking a rest in the
Dubovaya Gardens on the western outskirts of the city. More than 20 Georgian
soldiers were killed and several dozen injured. The battalion fled in panic,
leaving behind its dead and much of the equipment, including at least three
T-72 tanks (side numbers 103, 109 and 111). News of the losses sustained in the
city, the entry of the Russian forces into the fray and the hysterical rumors of
the destruction of the 42nd Battalion spread like wildfire among the Georgian
troops in the city, wreaking havoc on their morale. They immediately began a
retreat from Tskhinvali, having taken no more than 30 per cent of its territory,
mainly in the west and southwest. The tide of the Georgian offensive against
the South Ossetian capital turned at about 1400 on August 8.
At around the same time, the Georgian 2
nd
Infantry Brigade from Senaki
began assembling in the conflict zone. Its forces were gathering near the village
of Takhtisdziri. The entire force was in place by the end of the day. Several
of the Brigades tanks and an infantry company, which were among the first
to arrive, were rushed to the Eredvi area to support the floundering offensive
of the 3
rd
Infantry Brigade and the 5
th
Infantry Brigades 53
rd
Light Infantry
Battalion, which had already been brought forward from the reserve.
At 1415, the Georgian Government made a televised announcement of a
humanitarian ceasefire from 1500 to 1800 to allow the civilians still remaining
in Tskhinvali to leave the city. The South Ossetian militia were offered amnesty
if they surrendered. The citys population was offered only one safe corridor
leading south into Georgia. But very few people in Tskhinvali were aware of
the offer as most of them were taking cover from Georgian shelling in their
basements and werent watching television.
Meanwhile, artillery of the Russian 693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment and
the BM-21 Grad MLR systems of the 292
nd
Combined Artillery Regiment
finished setting up their positions by 1500 and opened fire at Georgian troops.
That only served to increase the panic among the retreating Georgians. By
1600, almost the entire territory of Tskhinvali was free of them. A small
Georgian force remained holed up on the southern fringes of the city and in
the suburb of Shankhay (Shanghai), where it was still blockading the Russian
peacekeepers compound. The South Ossetian militia used the respite to set
up communications, coordinate their actions and replenish ammunition.
They then proceeded to clear any remaining pockets of Georgian resistance
in the city.
Almost immediately after the abrupt end of the offensive in Tskhinvali, the
Georgian advance to the east of the city also ground to a halt. Light infantry
battalions of the 3
rd
Infantry Brigade came under artillery fire from the Russian
and South Ossetian forces, and were targeted by several Russian air raids.
They were eventually forced to retreat back to Eredvi. Tanks of the 2
nd
and 3
rd

Infantry Brigades also left their positions outside Tskhinval and retreated even
deeper into Georgia for fear of Russian bombing raids.
At 1600, Il-76 transports of the Russian Air Forces 103
rd
Air Transport
Regiment began airlifting a battalion-strength tactical group of the 104
th

Airborne Assault Regiment from Pskov to Beslan. Forces of the 19
th
Motorized
Rifle Division also continued their movement into South Ossetia. There
was no let up in the Russian Su-24M and Su-25 aircraft pounding Georgian
forces around Tskhinvali and on the Gori-Tskhinvali road, as well as military
infrastructure deep in Georgian territory.
At 1505, the military base in Vaziani, where Georgian reserves were still
assembling, suffered another air raid. There were several casualties and some
damage to the base itself. At 1630, two Russian Su-24M frontline bombers
struck Georgias main airbase in Marneuli, destroying three An-2 light
transports belonging to the Georgian Air Force. At 1700 there was another
attack on the base by a pair of Su-25s, and at 1735 yet another by three Su-
24Ms. The Bolnisi airfield was also bombed. Then at about 1800, the Russian
Air Force lost its first aircraft during the conflict. An Su-25 of the 368
th
Attack
Aviation Regiment from Budennovsk came under friendly fire from a man-
portable SAM system as it was overflying the positions of Russian troops along
the Zarskaya road. The pilot, Lt Col Oleg Terebunskiy, ejected to safety.
56 Anton Lavrov
By 1700, another three Mi-24 attack helicopters of the Georgian Air Force
had arrived from their base in Senaki at the makeshift helipad near Kaspi,
taking up the size of the Georgian attack helicopter group there to a formidable
six. But mindful of the Russian fighter jets whizzing overhead, the Georgian
command did not order any of those helicopters into action on that day.
By 1800, Georgias fresh 2
nd
Infantry Brigade had arrived in the conflict
zone by rail and taken up its initial positions. It began preparations for an
advance towards the village of Khetagurovo, recently abandoned by the 4
th

Infantry Brigade. By then, almost the entire Georgian Army (apart from several
units of the 1
st
and 5
th
Brigades) and a large part of the Interior Troops had been
brought to bear against South Ossetia.
Once the Georgians had realized that the storming of Tskhinvali had
failed, and that the Russian army was pouring into the conflict zone, they
began withdrawing from the villages of the Georgian enclave to the north of
Tskhinvali. Residents of the villages, soldiers of the 1
st
Infantry Brigade serving
in the Georgian peacekeeper battalion there, police and armed formations of
the Georgian government in South Ossetia were all leaving the area. By late
afternoon, most of the villages of the Bolshoy Liakhvi gorge had been almost
completely deserted by the Georgian armed forces.
At about 1800, Georgian army units backed by several tanks of the
Independent Combined Tank Battalion made another attempt to enter the
southern fringes of Tskhinvali via the Shankhay district from the Zemo-
Nikozi area. But on the far approaches to the city they came under artillery
and mortar fire from the Russian troops and small arms fire from the Ossetian
militia. The attack ground to a halt, and by 1900 the Georgians withdrew back
to their positions in Zemo-Nikozi.
During a relative respite in the fighting at about 1900, and following
negotiations involving OSCE mediators, 24 Russian peacekeepers who
had sustained serious injuries were allowed to leave the blockaded Southern
compound. The evacuation was carried out using a Ural armored truck,
the only one that had survived the shelling of the compound. Following
negotiations with the blockading Georgian forces, the truck was allowed out of
the compound, but it then came under Georgian mortar fire as it was leaving
the city. Nevertheless, it managed to break through to the Zarskaya road, where
it was met by forward units of the 135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiment.
By 2200, Tskhinvali had been cleared of Georgian troops and returned
fully under the South Ossetian forces control. The Zarskaya detour road was
also cleared following the Georgians withdrawal from Tbet and Khetagurovo.
Late in the afternoon, the road was used by an advance group of the Russian
forces to enter Khetagurovo. The group included two T-72B tanks of the
19
th
st
Independent Tank Battalion, and part
of the strength of the 135
th
Motorized Regiments reconnaissance company
(23 soldiers).
In the last hours of August 8th it became clear that the Georgian offensive
against South Ossetia had fizzled out. In the center, the Georgian attackers were
forced to withdraw from Tskhinvali and take up positions in the border villages
on Georgian territory. To the east of the city, Georgian forces had pulled back
towards Eredvi and Prisi, abandoning most of the positions they had seized
in the morning and early afternoon. To the west of Tskhinvali, in the Znaur
district, the 43
rd
Light Infantry Battalion had managed to take a few kilometers
of South Ossetian territory, but failed to seize the district center itself. On the
western border of South Ossetia, a small Georgian force had failed to make any
inroads at all. The Georgians were successful only in the remote Leninogorsk
district, where the South Ossetians had almost no armed strength when the
offensive began.
The number of Russian troops that entered South Ossetia on August 8, based
on the nominal strength of the formations involved in action on that day, can be
estimated at 3,000-3,500 soldiers, armed with about 30 tanks and as many pieces
of self-propelled artillery. That group was equivalent in strength to one Georgian
infantry brigade, and much smaller than the total Georgian force amassed in and
around Tskhinvali on August 8. The Russian troops were therefore unable to
mount an offensive to throw the Georgians back from the South Ossetian border
and establish a buffer zone, so as to prevent Georgian shelling of South Ossetian
territory. The Russian command therefore continued to bring more troops into
the republic. Meanwhile, the Russian Air Force had flown 63 sorties that day to
provide air cover to the peacekeepers and Russian troops.
Apparently aware that it still had superiority in numbers, the Georgian
command decided to attempt another offensive the following day. It positioned
the fresh 2
nd
Infantry Brigade on the border, poised for an attack, and regrouped
the units that took part in the August 8 operation. Georgian artillery, which
had not sustained any losses, continued to shell targets in South Ossetia and
was preparing for a massive barrage to support the new offensive.
Abkhazia
In the first few hours of the conflict it remained unclear whether the assault on
South Ossetia would be followed by a simultaneous offensive against Abkhazia.
There were large Georgian forces stationed in the direct vicinity of the Abkhaz
border and in the upper Kodori gorge, which is disputed by Georgia and
Abkhazia. Those forces included the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade in Senaki, units of
the 5
th
Infantry Brigade in the Kodori gorge and several thousand servicemen
of the Georgian Interior Ministry. Georgia also had the ability to mobilize and
arm thousands of trained reserves in a matter of one or two days.
58 Anton Lavrov
That is why the Abkhaz Security Council held an emergency meeting at
0200 on August 8 and approved the decision to put some of the Abkhaz Army
units on high alert, move those troops towards the border with Georgia and
begin mobilization of reserves. At 0500, Abkhaz forces began their movement
towards the border in the Ochamchira and Gal districts. They included the
1
st
Independent Tank Battalion and the 2
nd
Independent Marines Battalion.
In compliance with a demand received from the command of the Joint CIS
Peacekeeping Force, they halted at the edge of the arms restriction zone
established under the Treaty of Moscow, and began to fortify their positions.
Meanwhile, the Russian Government approved an emergency decision
to send extra troops to Abkhazia, most of them airborne assault units. In the
morning of August 8, the 7
th
Airborne Assault (Mountain) Division stationed in
Novorossiysk was ordered to put together three battalion-strength tactical groups
and send them to Abkhazia. Some of the forces would be brought in by sea.
By late afternoon, a battalion tactical group of the Divisions 108
th
Airborne
Aassault Regiment had began boarding large tank landing ships (LSTs) of the
Russian Black Sea Fleet in the port of Novorossiysk. The first LST to depart was
the Tsezar Kunikov. After taking on 150 soldiers and 20 vehicles, the landing ship
was heading for Abkhazia by 1900. By 2030, most of the battalion groups strength
had assembled in the port after returning from the Ramenskoye training range.
The Saratov, an LST en route to Sevastopol, was ordered to turn back.. It returned
to Novorossiysk at full speed, unloaded all its cargo by 2300 and then took up the
rest of the battalion group 450 soldiers and more than 100 vehicles.
By nightfall, several small combat ships based in Novorossiysk had also left
the port and headed for the Abkhaz coast to cover the landing of the Russian
troops and protect Abkhazia from the sea. The flagship of the Russian Black
Sea Fleet, the Moskva guided missile cruiser based in Sevastopol, also began
urgent preparations to put to sea.
At 2345, two Russian combat aircraft, most likely Su-24MRs, were sent to
take aerial photographs of Georgian positions in the Kodori gorge. They used
photoflash bombs during the mission. The images were later used to plan the
Abkhaz and Russian offensive in the gorge.
August 9
South Ossetia
At 0130, Georgian artillery began softening up targets in South Ossetia ahead
of another offensive to be led by the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade. Heavy shelling
continued until 0230; after that, there were only sporadic shots. At about
0600, Georgian troops launched an offensive in several directions. The 22
nd

and 23
rd
Light Infantry Battalions of the 2
nd
Brigade, backed by tanks, began
their advance towards Khetagurovo.
There they encountered resistance from the Russian recon unit and tanks which
had entered the village by nightfall on August 8. The 2
nd
Brigade lost at least two
soldiers in a long-range exchange of fire. Meanwhile, the small Russian force in
Khetagurovo pulled back from the village without any losses and managed to break
through to Tskhinvali along the road via the village of Tbet, which was still free of
Georgian troops. Since there were no Georgian forces in the city at the time, the
Russian force reached the compound of the Russian peacekeepers on the southern
fringe of Tskhinvali without encountering any resistance. At 0400, 23 soldiers of the
135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiments reconnaissance company entered the compound.
Shortly afterwards they were joined by two T-72B tanks of the 141
st
Independent
Tank Battalion. These reinforcements brought welcome relief to the Russian
peacekeepers blockaded inside the base, and enabled them to hold the compound
until late afternoon of August 9. The reconnaissance company and soldiers of the
10
th
Independent Special Force Brigades 107
th
Special Task Squad, who were among
the peacekeepers, held the perimeter of the base. They prevented the Georgian troops
from taking the compound by storm. Soldiers of the reconnaissance company at the
compound also acted as spotters for Russian artillery.
In Znaur district of South Ossetia, Georgias 43
rd
Light Infantry Battalion
resumed an offensive during the night. Joined by a small force of reserves, it
began to advance towards the district center of Znaur, which it had failed to
take the previous day. To the east of Tskhinvali, the 3
rd
Infantry Brigade also
resumed an offensive, moving towards Dmenis and Tliakan. In the center, the
Georgians continued to form a combined force which was to make a second
major attempt to take Tskhinvali by storm.
This time round, the Georgians were moving much more deliberately and
cautiously in all directions, with long delays whenever they encountered fortified
positions and South Ossetian resistance. It took the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade until
1200 to occupy the now deserted village of Khetagurovo, which had been
abandoned by the advance Russian force. On that occasion, the Georgians left
a reinforced company to hold the village.
In the morning of August 9, the Russian Air Force lost three combat
aircraft within only a few hours. At about 0900, a Russian Tu-22M3 heavy
bomber was shot down by Georgian Air Defenses over the Sachkhere district
of Georgia while on a combat mission. The plane belonged to the 52
nd
Guard
Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment based in Shaykovka. Two members of its
crew, Maj Nesterov and Maj Pryadkin, were killed. Maj Malkov was injured
and then taken prisoner by the Georgian forces. The commander, Lt Colonel
Koventsov, went missing after ejecting from the plane. Only a short time later,
at about 1000, a Russian Su-24M frontline bomber was shot down from a
Georgian man-portable SAM system in the area of Shindisi. The crew of the
plane, which belonged to the 923
rd
State Flight Test Centre in Akhtubinsk and
60 Anton Lavrov
was on a mission to suppress Georgian artillery, had ejected before the crash.
But Col Rzhavitin was killed during landing, and the commander of the crew,
Col Zinov, was injured and taken prisoner. Almost simultaneously, a Russian
Su-25SM attack aircraft of the 368
th
Attack Aviation Regiment was shot down
over Tskhinvali. The plane, which had already been damaged during a raid on
a Georgian convoy, was apparently hit by friendly fire. The pilot, Col Kobylash,
managed to eject to safety over the Georgian villages of the Bolshoy Liakhvi
gorge, and then reached Russian troops on foot. Such an unexpected spate of
losses forced the Russian command to reduce the use of combat aviation on
August 9 until the causes of the incidents could be analyzed.
Nevertheless, Russian bombers and ground attack aircraft continued
individual sorties during the day. At 1100, four long-range Tu-22M3 bombers
dropped about a hundred unguided 250 kg bombs on the Kopitnary airfield
near the city of Kutaisi. The bombers flew transverse to the direction of the
landing strip during the raid and managed to hit it in three separate places.
That took the airfield completely out of action. Some of the airfields parking
lots and taxi lanes were also damaged. At 1130, during a bombing raid on a
Georgian military base situated in Sukhishvili Street in the city of Gori, several
bombs missed their target. Three five-storey apartment blocks about 100
meters away from a military facility were seriously damaged. Some 14 Georgian
civilians were killed, in the worst incident of its kind during the entire war. The
base of an Independent Combined Tank Battalion, which was the target of the
raid, also sustained serious damage after fire broke out in the ammo depot.
At about 1300, Georgian Mi-24 attack helicopters took advantage of a relative
lull in the Russian air raids and conducted their first sortie. They attacked the
positions of the South Ossetian Defense Ministrys 4
th
Battalion near the village of
Gudzabar and the asphalt plant on the outskirts of Tskhinval. The helicopters fired
machine guns and unguided rockets, then safely returned to their makeshift base
near Kaspi. But they failed to inflict any damage on the South Ossetian or Russian
forces, and the mission did not have any effect on the outcome of the war.
Meanwhile, Georgian forces had almost finished regrouping near Zemo-
Nikozi for another attempt to storm the city, but Russian intelligence was unaware
of those plans. The Commander of the North Caucasus Military Districts 58
th

Army, Lt Gen Anatoliy Khrulev, therefore decided to take advantage of the
fact that Tskhinval was in the hands of the South Ossetian militia, and the
Zarskaya detour road was free. He ordered a Russian motorized rifle battalion
to enter the city, reach the Russian peacekeepers Southern compound, lift
the Georgian blockade, take defensive positions on the southern outskirts of
Tskhinval and wait for the arrival of reinforcements. At about 1400, part of
the strength of the 135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiments battalion tactical group
left its positions along the Zarskaya road and headed for Tskhinval. The force
consisted of the 1
st
Motorized Rifle Battalions second and third companies. It
was also joined by Khrulev himself and part of the 58
th
Army HQs operational
group on three armored personnel carriers.
At exactly the same time, 1400, Georgian artillery resumed its shelling of
Tskhinvali ahead of another attempt to storm the city. On the far approaches to
the city, the Russian convoy came under artillery fire, losing one BMP infantry
fighting vehicle and three GAZ-66 trucks of the mortar battery, but continued
onwards. Near the village of Tbet it found two Georgian T-72 tanks, side
numbers 110 and 125, which the Georgians had abandoned the previous day,
and blew them up. At around 1500, the Russian convoy entered the city from
the west, while the Georgians were already pouring into Tskhinval from the
south, along the road from the village of Nikozi. The Georgian force consisted
of the 21
st
and 41
st
Light Infantry Battalions, an Independent Light Infantry
Battalion, part of the strength of the 2
nd
Infantry Brigades tank battalion and
other army units.
On the edge of the city, the Russian convoy encountered the Georgian 2
nd

Infantry Brigades reconnaissance company. Both sides were taken by surprise,
and both took casualties in the ensuing brief and extremely short range
exchange of fire. Three Russian solders were killed, and the bodies of at least
eight Georgian soldiers were later found at the scene. The commander of the
58
th
Army, Gen Khrulev, was injured, along with several Russian journalists
who accompanied him. The Georgian reconnaissance company pulled back
after taking heavy casualties, and the Russian convoy continued onwards along
the city streets towards the peacekeepers South compound.
Meanwhile, the advancing Georgian troops made another attempt to take
Tskhinval by storm. They attacked from the direction of Zemo-Nikozi, to the
south of the city. As on the previous day, the Russian peacekeepers southern
compound was in their way. Georgian tanks approached it and started firing at
the half-destroyed barracks from a close distance. Most of the peacekeepers were
taking cover in the barracks basement. The building was soon in flames, smoke
started to seep into the basement, and the peacekeepers found themselves in a
desperate situation.
Only 400 meters away from the compound, in the Shankhay suburb of
Tskhinvali, the head of the Russian convoy consisting of the 135
th
Motorized
Rifle Regiments 1
st
Battalion ran into the main Georgian force, which was
armed with tanks and other heavy armor. The battle began at 1530. The Russian
convoy immediately lost four infantry fighting vehicles to Georgian fire. About
a quarter of the convoy managed to withdraw back into the countryside. The
rest found themselves blockaded in the city and encircled by the Georgian forces.
The Russian troops were forced to take up all-round defensive positions and
fight back. The companies eventually got separated into separate platoons led by
62 Anton Lavrov
junior commanders. However, most of the battalions equipment was rescued: the
soldiers took it out of sight from the streets and into the backyards.
The part of the convoy that was able to pull back from the city along the
Zarskaya road soon came under tank fire from the Khetagurovo village, which
had been taken by the Georgian forces. It lost another two BMP-1 infantry
fighting vehicles and one BRDM-2 armored reconnaissance and patrol vehicle.
The road was now blocked.
At about 1500, a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft of the 368
th
Attack Aviation
Regiment was shot down near Djava, close to the Gufti bridge, in yet another
friendly fire incident. It was hit from a Russian ZSU-23-4 Shilka self-propelled
air defense artillery system covering the Gufti bridge. The plane went down not
far from the bridge itself, near the Ossetian village of Itrapis. The pilot, Major
Vladimir Edamenko, was killed.
At 1530, units of the Russian Armys Spetsnaz and a company of the Vostok
Battalion, hardened in the Chechen wars, rushed to the rescue of the 135
th

Motorized Rifle Regiments blockaded 1
st
Battalion. Russian artillery batteries
and the mortar battery of the 135
th
Regiments 1
st
Motorized Rifle Battalion
opened heavy fire at the Georgian troops, while the Russian attack aviation was
redirected to pound Georgian positions around the city.
In the ensuing artillery duel, the Russian artillery units suffered their first
losses. They had taken up positions along the Zarskaya road near the village
of Galuanta. The site was convenient but in plain view of the Georgian forces.
The deputy commander of the 693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiments self-propelled
howitzer battery, Maj Tarasov, died from a shrapnel wound. Seven trucks of one
of the regiments mortar batteries, which were parked in close proximity along
the road, were also destroyed. Sergeants Belousov and Gorkovoy were killed
when the 135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiments mortar battery came under fire.
Several other soldiers were injured.
However, Russian artillery spotters had already deployed by that time, and
set up communication lines with the reconnaissance company that had broken
through to the Russian peacekeepers compound the previous night. Their
information enabled the Russian artillery batteries to improve their accuracy.
Georgian troops soon found themselves under continuous heavy and accurate
shelling from Russian artillery deployed along the Zarskaya road, as well as
self-propelled howitzers and MLR systems positioned further back near Djava.
The shelling constrained and demoralized the Georgian troops. The HQ of the
Georgian 41
st
Light Infantry Battalion was hit, which significantly impaired
its command and coordination system. All of that contributed to preventing
the Georgian troops from destroying the Russian battalion blockaded in the
Shankhay suburb, or seizing the peacekeepers southern compound, which that
battalion had been trying to reach.
The Georgian attacking force soon buckled under the strain of Russian
shelling and closer-quarter firefights on the streets of Tskhinvali with the
Ossetian troops, the Russian army battalion and the Spetsnaz. After suffering
significant losses, by 1700 the Georgians had began to pull back from the
city. At least 20 Georgian soldiers were killed during the firefight in the city,
including the Commander of the 41
st
Light Infantry Battalion, Maj Shalva
Dolidze. More than 100 soldiers were injured. By 1900, the city was almost
completely abandoned by the Georgian Army. During that second and last
attempt to take Tskhinvali by storm, they had made even smaller inroads into
the city than on August 8, taking only the southwestern outskirts and then
falling back only a few hours later. By 1900, the 43
rd
Light Infantry Battalion,
which had taken Znaur only a few hours previously, panicked and abandoned
that district center as well.
Following the Georgian withdrawal, the blockade of the Russian peacekeepers
southern compound was finally lifted. At about 1900, the 2
nd
Peacekeepers
battalion of the 135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiment withdrew from the base, having
separated into several smaller groups. It was joined by the Spetsnaz squads, one
tank of the 141
st
Independent Tank Battalion, which had run out of ammo, the
crew of the second tank, which had been damaged during the battle, and the 135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiments reconnaissance company, which had all been sent to
the peacekeepers rescue. Of the Russian servicemen who were in the compound
during the conflict, 14 had been killed most of them when the compound was
pounded by Georgian tanks in the morning of August 8.
By 1900, the Georgian force that had crossed into South Ossetia from the
direction of Perevi on the remote western border and positioned itself near the
village of Sinaguri was hit by a Russian missile strike. The Georgians were hit
by at least one Tochka-U (SS-21) short-range ballistic missile armed with a
cluster warhead. They immediately withdrew back into Georgia and did not
attempt another attack on that direction for the rest of the conflict.
By 2000, the 503
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiments battery of the 2S3 Akatsiya
152 mm self-propelled howitzers had deployed along the Zarskaya road
and started shelling the Georgian troops. By 2100, Georgian artillery had
managed to locate the rocket battery of the 19
th
Motorized Rifle Divisions
292
nd
Combined Artillery Regiment, which had been firing at the Georgian
positions since August 8 from a site just a few kilometers away from Djava. One
Russian soldier was injured when the battery came under Georgian fire, and the
battery was forced urgently to change its position. The injured private Anton
Shcherbakov was the Regiments only combat loss during the entire war.
By nightfall, the 135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiments 1
st
Battalion, which had
sustained serious losses during its attempt earlier in the day to relieve the Russian
peacekeepers, had withdrawn from Tskhinvali. Up to 15 of its soldiers were killed
64 Anton Lavrov
and dozens injured when it came under attack on the Zarskaya road and then battled
the Georgian forces on the streets of Tskhinvali. After the battalions pullout, the
city was left abandoned by both the Russian and the Georgian forces. For the rest
of the day and during the night it was controlled by the local militia. Only a few
small groups of Russian special task forces and about a company and a half of the
693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment were still active in the city and its outskirts. They
had been rushed into Tskhinvali after the street battles began earlier in the day.
To the east of the city, battalions of the Georgian 3
rd
Infantry Brigade had again
withdrawn first to Eredvi, and then deeper into Georgia to the town of Tkviavi.
By nightfall of August 9, the Georgian forces had again lost almost all of
their gains in South Ossetia made earlier in the day. What is more, they had
even begun pulling back from the South Ossetian border. All that remained
under Georgian control were the Ossetian village of Khetagurovo and the
approaches to the village of Tbet, held by units of the Georgian 2
nd
Infantry
Brigade. The Georgian command had left the Abkhaz border completely bare
and thrown all available army units into battle in South Ossetia, but still failed
to achieve a military success or inflict any significant damage on the Russian
forces. Georgias own troops, however, had sustained heavy losses and were
quite exhausted. The government in Tbilisi therefore asked the United States
for help in arranging an emergency airlift back to Georgia of the 2,000 soldiers
of the Georgian 1
st
Infantry Brigade serving in Iraq.
On August 9, the Russian Air Force flew 28 combat missions to support
the peacekeepers. That number was significantly lower than on the previous
day due to the loss of several planes in the morning.
Abkhazia
Close to midnight, Russian troops in the area of Ochamchira in Abkhazia
launched two Tochka-U short-range ballistic missiles at Georgias main Naval
base in the port of Poti. The Russian Tochka-U battalion had secretly been
brought into Ochamchira back in the autumn of 2007. The missiles, which
were armed with cluster warheads, hit the territory of the Naval base and the
adjacent civilian container terminal. Five Georgian Navy sailors were killed
and more than 30 injured. There was a similar number of casualties among
the civilians in the container terminal. The ports infrastructure sustained only
very minor damage, but the missile strike still caused major disruption. Those
of the Georgian Navy ships that had their crews on board and were sound
enough technically to put to sea began urgent preparations to sail for the port
of Batumi.
Simultaneously with the missile strike at Poti, at 0017 Russian aviation
raided the 2
nd
Infantry Brigades base in Senaki, which was being used as an
assembly point for the reserves from western Georgia. More than a thousand
reserves were at the base during the bombing raid. Seven of them were killed
and dozens injured. As a result, the orders for the reserves to assemble at the
base were rescinded, and those who had already arrived were turned back home.
Several bombs also landed near the railway station in the city itself, killing
civilians and causing damage to several building and the railway track.
At 0530, a Russian Navy squadron arrived in the area of Ochamchira.
It included two large tank landing ships, the Tsezar Kunikov and the Saratov,
a guided missile corvette, the Mirazh, an anti-submarine corvette, the Suzdalets,
and two ocean minesweepers, the Zheleznyakov and the Turbinist. The two
landing ships were carrying a battalion-size tactical group of the 7
th
Airborne
Assault Divisions 108
th
Airborne Assault Regiment, which had boarded
in Novorossiysk over 600 servicemen and about 120 vehicles. The ships remained
in the outer harbor of Ochamchira awaiting further orders.
By the morning of August 9, the Abkhaz Defense Ministry had decided
to launch an offensive in the Kodori gorge. At 0700, Abkhaz troops began
amassing near the villages of Lata and Zemo-Lata ahead of the assault. After
midday, the Abkhaz Army began an operation to force the Georgian forces out
of the Kodori gorge. They opened fire from artillery and MLR systems, and
launched several air raids using Mi-24 and Mi-8 helicopters. They also used
L-39 jet trainers as light attack aicraft to drop bombs and launch unguided
rockets, delivering their first air strike at the Georgian positions at 1430. By
1500, the Abkhaz Army had deployed all its command posts. The central
command post was in the village of Tsabal, the backup post in Sukhumi, and
the forward posts near Zemo-Lata and in Ochamchira.
In the afternoon of August 9, Turkey made a delivery of several Nurol Ejder
armored personnel carriers, which Georgia had bought before the war. They
had been loaded onto open flatbed trucks and taken from Batumi to Tbilisi
via Kobuleti, Kutaisi and Gori. The sight of those unusual-looking six-wheeled
APCs being hauled along the Georgian motorways gave birth to rumors that
NATO was bringing in its hardware into the country to give Georgia military
assistance in the conflict with Russia. Another wave or rumors was triggered
after the Georgian Navy ships had arrived at the outer harbor of Batumi from
their vulnerable base in Poti, which had suffered a Russian missile strike during
the night. The ships remained in the outer harbor for several hours without
entering the port itself. The sight of that military flotilla, which included
Georgian landing ships, appearing near the civilian port of Batumi gave rise to
speculation that Turkey had sent its Marines to aid Georgia.
At 1600, Russia made an official announcement declaring the coast of
Abkhazia out of bounds for all shipping, and said the security zone would be
patrolled by the Russian Navy. At 1640, the Russian Black Sea Fleets flagship,
the Moskva guided missile cruiser, and the Smetlivyy destroyer left the Sevastopol
66 Anton Lavrov
harbor and headed for Abkhazia. At 1912, several Georgian Navy boats that
had left Poti and entered the security zone while heading in the direction of
Ochamchira were attacked by the Mirazh and the Suzdalets, which were covering
the Russian LSTs. The Russian corvettes launched two 4K85 Malakhit (SS-N-9)
anti-ship missiles and two 9M33M2 Osa-MA2 (SA-N-4) missiles. The Georgian
boats turned back and headed in the direction of Poti. Later on, the Russian
command said that one of the Georgian boats was sunk in that incident, but there
has been no independent confirmation of that statement, and the Georgians have
not admitted any losses. The circumstances of the episode remain unclear.
As for the Russian large tank landing ships, it turned out that they could not
enter the Ochamchira port because it was too small, and its navigation channel
had been allowed to silt up. The troops they were carrying were therefore forced
to land on a beach near Ochamchira later that afternoon.
August 10
South Ossetia
The artillery duel between the Russian and Georgian forces continued through
the night, as did Georgian shelling of the Zarskaya detour road, which the Russian
forces relied on for troop movements. Russian aviation continued its night-time
raids. More bombs were dropped on the landing strip of the Tbilisi aviation plant
and a communication center near the village of Urta, in Zugdidi district.
During the night, units of the Russian 42
nd
Motorized Rifle Division started
entering South Ossetia after a 300 km march from its bases in Chechnya.
Meanwhile, the Russian Spetsnaz, a battalion tactical group of the 76
th
Airborne
th
airborne assault regiment, and the Vostok Battalion
conducted a clean-up operation in the villages of the Georgian enclave to the
north of Tskhinvali. They also cleaned up a stretch of the Zarskaya road leading
to the city. Their task was to ensure unimpeded entry of a large Russian force into
Tskhinvali the following day.
At 0700, units of the 503
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment started entering
the South Ossetian capital from the west. The stretch of the Trans-Caucasus
Motorway that passes through the villages of the Georgian enclave had also
been cleaned up by the Russian forces by daybreak. At 1030, armor and
equipment of the 42
nd
Motorized Rifle Division took that shortest route to
Tskhinvali. At about midday on August 10, a T-62M tank of the Divisions 71
st

Motorized Rifle Regiment was hit in the eastern part of the city. The tanks
commander, Second Lieutenant Neff, was killed. The circumstances of the
incident are unclear. That was the second tank lost by the Russian army during
the conflict.
The operation to take Tskhinvali under Russian control continued through
the day. The forces that entered South Ossetia on August 10 included the
42
nd
th
and 71
st
Motorized Rifle Regiments, the
50
th
Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment, the 417
th
Independent Reconnaissance
Battalion and various logistics units. The division deployed a total of almost
4,500 soldiers in the republic, 29 T-62 and T-62M tanks, 40 self-propelled
artillery pieces and more than 250 APCs and infantry fighting vehicles. The
large forces being brought into Tskhinvali caused huge traffic jams on the Trans-
Caucasus Motorway near Djava, leading to hours of delays and holding back
the deployment of the Russian troops. The arrival of the 42
nd
Motorized Rifle
Division, two battalion tactical groups of the 76
th
Airborne Assault Division
and the 19
th
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment had
almost doubled the Russian troop numbers in South Ossetia. Russia now had
more than 10,000 soldiers in the republic which was about as many as Georgia
had brought to bear against South Ossetia.
By midday, the Russian forces had set up a makeshift helipad at a convenient
spot to the west of Djava, near the village of Ugardanta, and brought about
10 attack and transport helicopters of the 487
th
Helicopter Regiment from
Budennovsk. That gave the Russian forces in South Ossetia much better air
support. A field hospital was deployed near the helipad.
By 1400, the last units of the Georgian Army had withdrawn from South
Ossetia and crossed back into Georgia. Several units of the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade
began fortifying their positions in the Georgian villages near the border, to the
south and southeast of Tskhinval. Other Georgian forces positioned themselves
in the villages between Tskhinvali and Gori. Due to the disruption of the chain of
command and communications, as well as signs of panic in the ranks, the Georgian
command was unable to organize the construction of makeshift fortifications
along the border, or take any other measures to defend Georgian territory against
possible attack. At 1730, Georgia made an official announcement that it had
ended hostilities and withdrawn all its troops from the conflict zone.
Nevertheless, exchanges of artillery fire continued between the Georgian and
Russian forces. Russia carried on with its air raids against targets between Gori
and Tskhinvali, as well as deep inside Georgian territory. At 1905, a civilian air
traffic radar in the Tbilisi International Airport was destroyed by an anti-radar
missile. At 1910, Russian aviation conducted a second raid against the landing
strip of the Tbilisi Aviation plant.
Close to midnight, Georgia resumed its shelling of Tskhinvali. It was,
however, less intense than in the previous days. Nevertheless, at 2300 Georgian
shells hit the positions of the 71
st
nd
Motorized
Rifle Battalion deployed to the east of Tskhinvali, in the area of the Prisi hills.
Three Russian soldiers were killed and 18 injured.
Late at night on August 10, the remaining units of the 693
rd
Motorized
Rifle Regiment entered Tskhinvali from the Zarskaya detour road and joined
68 Anton Lavrov
the regiments battalion-strength tactical group, which was rushed into South
Ossetia in the first hours of the conflict. The newly arrived forces included 22
T-72 tanks of the regiments tank battalion. They and the T-62 tanks of the
42
nd
Motorized Rifle Division had significantly increased the assault capability
of the Russian troops in South Ossetia.
There were no major clashes between the Georgian and Russian or South
Ossetian forces throughout the whole day. The Georgian army made no more
attempts to launch an attack. Instead, it withdrew into Georgia and tried to
take up fortified positions in the border areas. Only artillery was still at work.
Before nightfall, large Russian forces entered Tskhinvali without any resistance
to speak of, and also took up positions around the city, to the east and west of
it. Also on August 10, Russian Mi-8 helicopters crossed deep into Georgia and
landed several special task force squads. They took up positions on strategic
heights around Gori and near Poti.
Abkhazia
By 0630, the battalions-size tactical group of the 7
th
Airborne Assault Divisions
108
th
Airborne Assault Regiment, brought by sea from Novorossiysk, had
landed on the beach in Ochamchira and assembled near the Teplichnyy factory
some 8 km northeast of the city. By 0800, the battalion-size tactical group
of the 31
st
Independent Airborne Assault Brigade had been airlifted from its
base in Ulyanovsk to the Babushary airfield. A total of four battalion-size
tactical groups of the Airborne Assault Troops had been airlifted to Abkhazia
by midday of August 10. Meanwhile, the main strength of the 7
th
Airborne
Assault Division had begun to arrive by rail from Novorossiysk.
By 1000, all Abkhaz reserves had been mobilized and attached to the front-
line army units. Following the mobilization, the numerical strength of the
Abkhaz forces stood at 9,000 people. During the day, Abkhaz artillery and
aviation continued to pound Georgian positions in the Kodori Gorge. During
the period of 1200-1300, they launched four air raids against the Georgian
forces in the gorge. By 1800, units of the Abkhaz Army had crossed into the
Arms control zone and took up positions along the river Inguri, which marks
the border with Georgia.
In late afternoon, the Russian command announced that the Russian force
in the republic now consisted of 9,000 soldiers most of them airborne assault
troops - and 350 armored vehicles. The Russian troops had next to no heavy
armor such as tanks or self-propelled artillery (apart from a small number of
120 mm 2S9 Nona-S airborne self-propelled gun-mortars). To some extent, the
Abkhaz Armys armor made up for this weakness of the Russian contingent.
By 1945 on August 10, the Moskva guided missile cruiser and the Smetlivyy
destroyer had arrived at Novorossiysk from Sevastopol and dropped anchor in the
outer harbor. Both remained there until the end of the conflict. At 2010, units of
the 108
th
Airborne Assault Regiment took under their control the bridge over the
river Inguri on the Abkhaz-Georgian border. Late at night, after negotiations with
the local administration and representatives of the Georgian Interior Ministry,
Russian troops crossed into Georgias Zugdidi District. They spent the night on
the territory of an abandoned Russian peacekeepers base in the village of Urta.
August 11
South Ossetia
During the night, Russian aviation continued air raids against Georgian targets
and conducted an operation to disable the Georgian air defense system. At 0030,
an anti-radar missile destroyed a 36D6-M military radar station in Shavshebi
near Gori. The radar was vitally important to Georgia as it controlled the air
space in the conflict zone. At 0400, another anti-radar missile destroyed a
powerful civilian radar on Mount Mkhat near Tbilisi, which was also integrated
into Georgias united airspace control system. Another Russian strike targeted the
Georgian Air Force command center. Georgias mobile air defense systems were
forced to shut down so as to avoid being hit by Russian missiles. At 0500, Russian
aviation conducted a bombing raid on the Shiraki airfield, damaging the landing
strip. At 0610, the Independent Combined Tank Battalions base in Gori was
bombed for the second time during the conflict. At 0715, a Russian Mi-24 attack
helicopter raided the Senaki airfield and used anti-tank guided missiles to destroy
two Georgian helicopters on the ground, an Mi-14BT and an Mi-24V.
In Tskhinvali, the night was relatively calm, despite sporadic shelling by
Georgian batteries near Gori. More Russian troops continued to arrive into
South Ossetia and the area around Tskhinvali itself. In order to prevent Georgian
shelling of South Ossetian territory, the Russian command decided to launch a
counterattack and push the Georgian troops away from the South Ossetian border
so as to create a buffer zone. In order to put that plan into action, the Russian forces
began assembling two regiment-strength tactical groups for the offensive.
One of the groups assembled to the east of the river Liakhva. It included
a battalion-size tactical group of the 76
th
th

Airborne Assault Regiment and the 42
nd
th

Motorized Rifle Regiment, which had arrived from Chechnya (minus most
of its artillery and one motorized rifle battalion). The 693
rd
Motorized Rifle
Regiment was chosen to lead the assault at the center, along the western bank
of the Liakhva. By 1100, almost all of the regiments strength, including the
tank battalion, had assembled just outside Tskhinvali. Although units of the
693
rd
regiment were some of the first to enter South Ossetia on August 8, and
then spent three days fighting the Georgian forces, they had taken very few
casualties - only two killed and less than 10 injured.
70 Anton Lavrov
The assault was to be led by the battalion tactical group of the 76
th
Airborne
th
Airborne Assault Regiment. The group included about
300 soldiers, 19 BMD-1 airborne armored vehicles, four 120 mm 2S9 Nona-S
self-propelled gun-mortars, and three BTR-D armored vehicles fitted with ZU-
23-2 air defense systems.
The group began its advance from the Tskhinvali-Tbet area at about 1030.
The troops were ordered to reach the line between Variani village and the Variani
collective farm by nightfall to create a buffer zone and put an end to Georgian
shelling of Tskhinvali and the surrounding territories. Initially the convoy took
the Tskhinval-Tbet-Khetagurovo-Avnevi route, but Russian reconnaissance
then found fortified positions of the Georgian Army in the Georgian village
of Avnevi. The 104
th
Airborne Assault Regiments Battalion Tactical Group,
which had the van, made its way across the countryside between the villages
of Avnevi and Zemo-Nikozi, moving deeper into Georgian territory. It came
under fire from Georgian positions in the area of Avnevi, but moved at full
speed away from the village and was soon out of range of Georgian fire. Without
encountering any further resistance it soon reached its destination, some 15 km
away from the South Ossetian border.
A convoy of the 693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment which followed the van
took the road via the Georgian village of Zemo-Khviti. At 1430 it was ambushed
in the center of the village by a small Georgian force, presumably soldiers of the
2
nd
Infantry Brigade and some reserves. The Russian force lost one T-72 tank
(side number 321) of the Regiments Second tank company, and two BMP-2
infantry fighting vehicles (side numbers 350 and 355) of the 2
nd
Battalions Fifth
company. Five servicemen (Lt Molchan and privates Burdenko, Kusmartsev,
Makeev and Pasko) were killed, including the entire crew of the tank, and
about 10 were injured. The Russian convoy got separated into two parts. The
head of the convoy, which included the tank company and the motorized rifle
company, had already passed the village and continued onwards. The rest of the
convoy halted and began surrounding the village. In coordination with special
task forces, including a company of the Vostok Battalion, they conducted a
clean-up operation in Zemo-Khviti and the surrounding villages.
After 1200, the 234
th
Airborne Assault Regiments battalion group began
to advance along the let bank of the Liakhva. Its strength was similar to that
of the 104
th
Regiments group: 300 soldiers, 22 BMD-2 airborne armored
vehicles, four 2S9 Nona-S self-propelled gun-mortars, and two ZU-23-2 air
defense artillery systems mounted on BTR-D chassis.
At about 1500, there was another friendly fire incident near the Georgian
village of Eredvi. The Russian convoy advancing into Georgia to the east of the
Liakhva was attacked by a Russian Su-25 attack aircraft of the 461
st
Krasnodar
Attack Aviation Regiment. A fuel tanker was hit, and several servicemen
injured. Russian soldiers returned fire from man-portable SAM systems. One
of the missiles damaged the planes right engine, which burst into flames. The
aircraft was barely able to return to its base.
Upon entering the village of Variany, soldiers of the 104
th
Airborne Assault
Regiment found a large Georgian logistics base there. That forward base supplied
the entire Georgian force in the conflict zone and stored large amounts of weapons
and ammo. In the ensuing battle, the Russian paratroopers seized the base.
Once the Russian forces had begun their offensive, the last units of the
Georgian 2
nd
Infantry Brigade still holding their positions near the South
Ossetian border began to withdraw towards Gori. A convoy of the brigades
engineers company, with 50 servicemen and about a dozen vehicles, was pulling
back from the village of Kelktseuli. Eventually it reached the Tskhinvali-Gori
motorway, unaware of the fact that it was following the Russian convoy heading
ever deeper into Georgian territory along the same road. Near Shindisi, the
Georgians bumped into two Russian BMD-1 airborne armored vehicles of the
104
th
Airborne Assault Regiment. One of them had suffered engine failure, and
another was left behind to provide technical assistance while the rest of the
Russian force moved on. The Russian paratroopers were the first to react. They
opened fire from their own rifles, RPGs and the BMD-1 guns, scattering the
Georgian convoy. Several Georgian soldiers were killed on the spot. The rest
took up positions in the buildings of the railway station. The main strength of
the Russian convoy was tied up in the battle for the logistics base in Variani
and could not come to the aid of the two vehicles which it had left behind.
The shootout between the dozen Russian paratroopers and the soldiers of the
Georgian engineers company lasted more than half an hour, until the van of
the 693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment (a tank company and a motorized rifle
company) arrived at the scene after being radioed for help. The Russian tanks
and armor quickly suppressed Georgian resistance. More than ten cars and
trucks of the Georgian convoy were destroyed in the battle, 17 Georgian solders
were killed and several taken prisoner. There were no fatalities among the
Russian troops.
At about 1700, the Georgian command undertook one last attempt to slow
down the advance of the Russian troops into Georgia. All six of the Mi-24
attack helicopters took off from the makeshift helipad near Kaspi and attacked
the Russian convoys. In the area between Pkhvenisi and Dzerevi, they managed
to destroy at least two Russian trucks. The helicopters then safely returned
to their base. The Russian side claimed that one of them was damaged by a
23 mm ZU-23-2 air-defense system mounted on a BTR-D chassis, which was
part of the 104
th
Airborne Assault Regiments battalion tactical group. That air
raid was the Georgian Air Forces most successful operation against the Russian
troops during the entire conflict but it failed to slow the Russian advance into
72 Anton Lavrov
Georgia to any perceptible degree. The Georgian helicopters were soon moved
to another base closer to Tbilisi, and took no more part in the hostilities.
At 1630, Mikhail Saakashvili, who was on a visit to Gori, was forced to
leave the city in all haste after the appearance of the Russian Su-25 jets. Half an
hour later, by 1700, a large Georgian army group assembled in the city began
urgent retreat. Most of it was pulling back towards Tbilisi, and a small group
towards Kutaisi. Some of the troops dispersed, moving along minor roads or
taking cover in the surrounding forests, individually and in small groups. The
Russian army and aviation did not attempt to engage the retreating troops or
attack them from the air.
By nightfall, a small Russian force of the 104
th
Airborne Assault Regiments
battalion tactical group and the 693
rd
Motorized Regiment took up defensive
positions near Variani. They had no information about the opposing Georgian
forces, and the main Russian force was left far behind, near the South Ossetian
border. The Russian van therefore expected a massive Georgian counterattack.
The paratroopers and motorized rifle soldiers dug up trenches and kept large
amounts of weapons and ammunition seized at the Georgian logistics base
close at hand. But the night passed with few incidents. The remaining combat-
ready Georgian army units had already retreated towards Tbilisi and were
busy fortifying their positions on the approaches to the capital, in the area of
Mtskheta. On the opposite bank of the Liakhva, the 234
th
Airborne Assault
Regiments battalion tactical group of Russian paratroopers spent the night
near the village of Mevgrekisi.
Throughout the day, more Russian troops continued to arrive in South
Ossetia. By nightfall of August 11, the Russian army group deployed in South
Ossetia and in the border districts of Georgia consisted of 14,000 soldiers, about
100 tanks, up to 100 self-propelled artillery pieces, more than 40 MLR systems,
up to 400 infantry fighting vehicles and 200 armored personnel carriers.
Abkhazia
In the morning, another two battalion-size tactical groups and the artillery
strength of the Russian 7
th
Airborne Assault Division crossed into Georgias
Zugdidi District. In the city of Zugdidi, the Russian command ordered the
local police to surrender their weapons.
The Abkhaz Government gave an ultimatum to the Georgian soldiers and
policemen in the Kodori Gorge to lay down their weapons and leave the gorge. By
1200, the Abkhaz armed forces had assembled an assault group of commandos to
seize the gorge and disarm any Georgian troops still remaining there.
After midday, a convoy of the Russian 7
th
th

Airborne Assault Regiment, accompanied by Georgian patrol police and a UN
monitoring mission in Georgia, entered the Georgian 2
nd
Infantry Brigades
base in the city of Senaki. The base had been abandoned by regular army units
and the reserves. On the Senaki airfield, the Russian troops blew up a Georgian
Mi-24V attack helicopter. The Russian troops also found four hidden T-72
tanks of the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade (side numbers 206, 207, 208 and 209). Two
of the tanks were blown up on the spot and another two towed to Abkhazia.
In addition, the Russian soldiers seized two Buk-M1 SAM launch vehicles,
another two reload vehicles plus several missiles.
Another group of Russian paratroopers, which included a reinforced
company of the 7
th
th
Airborne Assault Regiment,
left Zugdidi at 2000, took a detour road via the Zugdidi-Khudoni-Tobari-Saken
route and blocked the exit from the Kodori Gorge. The Georgian army units
and police forces in the gorge were now surrounded. Realizing this, they began
to lay down their arms. Some of them discarded their uniforms, donned plain
clothes and headed for Georgian territory in small groups, having abandoned
all their heavy weaponry. They were not impeded by the Russian troops at the
checkpoint on the road leading out of the gorge. By 2100, a reconnaissance
squad of the Russian commandos reached the city of Poti on BMD vehicles.
After reconnoitering the area, the squad returned to Zugdidi.
August 12
South Ossetia
In the morning, Russian troops began taking under their control Georgian
territory and settlements between Gori and Tskhinvali. They did not encounter
any resistance from the Georgian army. By 1100, the battalion tactical groups of
the 693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment and the 104
th
Airborne Assault Regiment had
reached the commanding high point near the Gori television transmitter. There
the Russian commandos seized several 100 mm MT-12 Rapira anti-tank guns
abandoned by the Georgian Artillery Brigades anti-tank battalion, and deployed
them to repel a possible counterattack. From this convenient vantage point, the
Russian groups artillery controlled the Tbilisi-Batumi motorway and railway line,
as well as the city of Gori and all the military bases in it. Russian troops had also
reached the northern outskirts of Gori and blockaded it from the northeast and
northwest by cutting off the main roads, but did not enter the city itself.
Close to midday, the Russian troops launched two Iskander (SS-26) short-
range ballistic missiles armed with cluster warheads at targets in Georgia.
One of them hit the airbase in Marneuli. Later on, the Georgian government
claimed that the missile actually targeted the nearby Baku-Supsa oil pipeline.
The second missile struck the central square of Gori, used as the main assembly
point by Georgian forces in the town the previous day. But when the missile
landed, the Georgian reserves and servicemen had already left. The missile
strike killed eight civilians and a Dutch TV cameraman.
74 Anton Lavrov
Shortly after noon, Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev announced that
the operation to force the Georgian government to peace was over. However, he
also ordered the suppression of any pockets of Georgian resistance if necessary.
By then, Georgian artillery had already fallen silent. Russian artillery delivered
its last strike at about 1400, using MLR systems. The last Russian airstrike was
made at about the same time. At 1500, the Russian Armed Forces officially
ended combat action.
The Georgian Army had mostly withdrawn before the advancing Russian
forces by nightfall of August 11, so there was a large neutral zone between the two
armies. Russian troops took advantage of the situation to take the Tbilisi-Gori
motorway under their control. They also found large stocks of weapons, military
equipment and ammunition at three large Georgian army bases in Gori.
Abkhazia
During the night on August 12, Abkhaz forces launched several more air raids
on Georgian positions in the Kodori Gorge. At 0600 they began a ground
assault operation. At 0900, Abkhaz aviation delivered an air strike near the
Adjara village. Later in the day the Abkhaz Armys Mi-8 helicopters landed
troops deep in the gorge, behind the defensive lines of the Georgian Interior
Ministry forces. Abkhaz soldiers then occupied the villages of Verkhnee Adjara
and Nizhnee Adjara, which form the administrative center of the Kodori
Gorge. Since most of the Georgian army and police forces there had already
surrendered their weapons and left the area, the Abkhaz troops reached the
border with Georgia at the upper end of the gorge at 2030 without encountering
any resistance, thereby restoring Abkhaz control of the gorge.
Late in the afternoon on August 12, a squad of the Airborne Troops 45
th

Independent Airborne Reconnaissance Regiment entered the Georgian port of
Poti. It blew up six Georgian Navy and Coast Guard ships and boats abandoned at
their moorings by the Georgians, including both of the Georgian Navys fast attack
craft (missile), the Tbilisi and Dioscuria, which formed the core of the Georgian
naval combat capability. The operation to blow up the Dioscuria was not a complete
success the boat remained afloat, and had to be blown up again on August 19.
August 13 to the beginning of Russian troop withdrawal
On August 13, a Russian convoy took the Gori-Tbilisi road to reach South
Ossetias remote Leninogorsk district, which had remained out of contact with
the rest of the republic since the beginning of the hostilities. The Georgians
initially mistook that Russian troop movement for preparations to storm Tbilisi.
The Russian troops formed the garrison of that remote district and held it until
the arrival of South Ossetian forces, thereby restoring South Ossetian control of
that disputed territory. Also on August 13, Russian troops took the city of Gori.
By August 14, the Georgian troops had used the respite to restore their
combat capability to some degree. Several Georgian army units and large
Interior Ministry forces were brought to the edge of the buffer zone occupied
by Russian troops. Fearing a counterattack, the Russian reconnaissance units
which were evacuating trophies from the Georgian military bases destroyed
up to 20 Georgian T-72 tanks they had seized, along with several BMP-2 and
BTR-80 vehicles. Meanwhile, Georgian police tried to enter the city of Gori,
but the Russian forces at the checkpoints refused to let them in. Tensions flared
up for a brief period, but weapons were not used.
Following the arrival of international mediators, over the period of August
15-16 Russia and Georgia negotiated and signed a ceasefire agreement. On
August 18, the Russian command announced the beginning of a phased
withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia.
In the following days, Russian forces in Georgia continued to seize military
trophies and remove them to Russia. They also dismantled equipment and
partially demolished buildings and structures at the Georgian military bases
in Gori, Senaki, Poti and the Kodori Gorge. They blew up the landing strip
and aircraft hangars at the airbase in Senaki. Russian squads entered the Naval
base in Poti almost every day to empty the warehouses of the Georgian Navy
and Coast Guard. They also confiscated the Georgian high-speed rigid hulled
inflatable boats. The Russian forces took many more spoils during that post-
war period than they did during the actual hostilities.
Georgia had suffered a heavy defeat during the short campaign. More than
2,000 of its soldiers and police officers had been killed or injured. That defeat
was seriously compounded during the post-war period, when the Georgian army
lost more equipment than during the war itself. The Russian and South Ossetian
forces captured 65 Georgian main battle tanks; more than 20 BMP infantry
fighting vehicles; two Cobra armored vehicles; about a dozen air defense systems
(including the loader vehicles); dozens of mortars and various artillery pieces,
including two Dana 152 mm self-propelled gun-howitzers and one 2S7 Pion
203 mm self-propelled gun. Most of them were seized after the end of hostilities.
Georgia also lost dozens of cars and trucks. Thousands of small arms pieces and
other kit were captured or destroyed. Many army bases were seriously damaged,
including the bases of the 1
st
Infantry Brigade, the Artillery Brigade and the
Independent Combined Tank Battalion in Gori, the 2
nd
Infantry Brigades base
in Senaki, and the Navy and Coast Guard Naval bases in Poti.
76
Present and Future
of the Georgian-Russian Conflict.
The Military Aspect
Vyacheslav Tseluiko
In August 2008, the Georgian army failed to justify the pre-war expectations of
many experts and crumbled before the Russian onslaught. Many have jumped
to the assumption that Georgia can never come out on top in a war with Russia
by the very nature of things. The assumption is superficial. It takes into account
neither the specifics of the military and political situation at the time, nor the
recent developments.
Careful analysis is required to understand how the still unresolved conflict
between Russia and Georgia might pan out, including the possibility of another
armed confrontation. That analysis should look into the balance of power
between the two sides, their resources and positions - before the Five Day War,
at present and in the near future.
Post-war transformation of the Georgian army
The pre-war development of the Georgian armed forces is the subject of a
separate essay in this book, so only a few things need to be pointed out.
First, a comparison of the numbers and structure of the Georgian army before
and after the war. By the summer of 2008, the Georgian armed strength was
32,000 people, including 22,000 in the Army, which consisted of five infantry
brigades, an artillery brigade, an engineers brigade (which was still being formed),
a special operations group, seven independent battalions (a combined tank
battalion, a motorized infantry battalion, medics, military police, communications,
radioelectronic reconnaissance, and logistics) and an air defense battalion.
1
The 5
th

Infantry Brigade was not yet fully formed (its 53
rd
Light Infantry Battalion was
due to finish the 12-week basic training course on October 3, 2008).
2
The bulk of
the strength (2,000 servicemen) of Georgias best-trained 1
st
Infantry Brigade was
serving in Iraq.
At present, according to the Georgian Defense Ministry budget reports,
the numerical strength of the Georgian armed forces is 37,800 people.
3
Other
sources put the figure at 36,600 people, including 36,200 servicemen.
4
The
Army strength is currently 23,000 servicemen.
5
The official figure is 20,500,
but that does not include some of the recently formed units, such as the
Independent Anti-Tank Battalion.
6
Unlike in August 2008, the entire strength
of the Georgian armed forces is now on Georgian territory, but plans are afoot
to send a 900-strong force (the 31
st
Light Infantry Battalion) to Afghanistan.
7

Meanwhile, the relatively fresh 4
th
and 5
th
Infantry Brigades have become more
capable thanks to training in the post-war period.
An important recent addition is the new 2
nd
Artillery Brigade. Its formation
began in the autumn of 2008; its core is made of the Khoni group of the Gori
Artillery Brigade (the latter has been re-designated as the 1
st
Artillery Brigade).
In November 2008, servicemen of the new 2
nd
Artillery Brigade took part in
a two-week exercise at the Orpolo training range, together with the artillery
battalions of the 3
rd
and 5
th
Infantry Brigades.
8
Notably, the new 5
th
Infantry Brigade and 2
nd
Artillery Brigade are both based
in the west of the country, close to Abkhazia, where Tbilisi already has the 2
nd
and
3
rd
Infantry Brigades plus an independent light infantry battalion. During the war
in August 2008, Russian commandos were able to raid this part of the country
unimpeded, and seize the Georgian military bases in Poti and Senaki. A repeat of
that scenario is now much less likely. Georgian command even believes that it has
more than enough troops near the Abkhaz border, which is why the 5
th
Infantry
Brigade has been relocated to the Gori District. That means that there are now
three infantry brigades and one artillery brigade stationed near Tbilisi. These forces
can rapidly be deployed against the Russian and Ossetian troops in South Ossetia.
On the minus side, the former Independent Combined Tank Battalion in
Gori has been disbanded, and plans to upgrade the existing engineers company
to a brigade have been cancelled. However, the Georgian army now has an
independent anti-tank battalion.
9
Meanwhile, the number of cadets trained at the Krtsanisi military training
center has been on the rise in the post-war period. Before the war and in the
79 Present and Future of the Georgian-Russian Conflict. The Military Aspect
second half of 2008, there were 500-650 servicemen taking basic training
courses there at any one time. But the number of cadets taking part in the
graduation ceremony on May 8, 2009 was as high as 832.
10
The rise in the
numbers of cadets trained at Krtsanisi may have been caused by the need to
train servicemen for the new Georgian army units and/or to compensate for
the soldiers leaving the armed forces. It is likely that the number of servicemen
taking courses at other training centers has also increased, and that the National
Guard bases in Kodjori, Mukhrovani, Telavi and/or Senaki are now involved in
training recruits or active reserves.
The latter development is directly linked to plans for a reform of the
Georgian military reserve system, which proved completely useless in battle
during the Five Day War. The reasons for that failure included insufficient
numbers of commanding officers, poor professional training and low morale
of the reserves. The absence of a combat-ready reserve capable of standing in
for regular army units during secondary operations or just guarding the rear
was one of the key reasons for Georgias defeat in August 2008. Tbilisi did
not have enough regular troops to fight on both fronts (in South Ossetia and
Abkhazia) at the same time. The 2
nd
and 3
rd
Infantry Brigades were tied up in
South Ossetia; the freshly formed 5
th
Infantry Brigade still had not reached its
full strength, and some of its units had to be rushed to South Ossetia too. All of
this resulted in the loss of the Kodori Gorge, which the Georgians were forced
to evacuate once they had realized the garrison was being surrounded by the
Russian units entering Zugdidi District. Russian troops were also able to seize
the Georgian military bases in Senaki and Poti.
These failures during the Five Day War forced the Georgian government
to launch a major overhaul of the reserve system. Information about the exact
details is scarce. It appears though that the three-pronged structure of the reserve
(with the so-called individual component, active component and the National
Guard) has been replaced with a new system consisting of the regular reserve
and the territorial forces.
11
The first component (also called first-class reserve)
will be made of at least two brigades (based in Telavi and Senaki). They are
manned by former regular army servicemen who have retired in the past five
years, primarily those who have also been trained under the American Train and
Equip program.
12
Many of the currently serving soldiers (including the veterans
of the Spetsnaz and the elite 1
st
and 2
nd
Infantry Brigades) have the term of their
contracts expiring in the coming months. Those of them who will choose not to
renew the contract will be enlisted into the two reserve brigades. It is expected
that at the initial stage, this component of the reserve will include 2,000 former
servicemen. It is possible that the number of the army-type reserve brigades will
be increased at some point. But the term of the service contract in the Georgian
army is fairly long, so it will be quite a while before there is enough of the retired
servicemen to form another reserve brigade. The plan is therefore also to enlist
volunteers who have not served in the army after they take several months of
military training courses. The total duration of the training program all first-class
reserves are required to take should be 200 days, including 45 days of individual
training and the remaining 155 as part of a military formation up to a battalion
in size.
13
The regular reserve may also include conscripts, if Georgia decides to
increase the numbers drafted each year.
It can be expected that once the first two reserve brigades have been formed,
they will become a force the Georgian command will really be able to count
on especially if they take refresher training courses with heavy emphasis on
combined arms operations and sabotage. In terms of their professionalism and
training, they will compare quite favorably to the Russian conscript soldiers, as
well as any fresh professional service recruits, be they Russian or Georgian.
The territorial component of the new Georgian reserve system will most likely
be consist of the old active reserve and the National Guard reserve. Its key tasks will
include guarding key infrastructure and defending sensitive facilities from saboteurs
or small groups of hostile forces. Very little can be expected from territorial reserves
in terms of their fighting ability. But they will still be able to take on some of the
lesser tasks and free up regular troops for more important duty.
In the bottom line, the Army component of the Georgian armed forces has
gained one artillery brigade and one infantry brigade since August 2008. If the two
army-type reserve brigades being formed now are added to the tally, the number of
the new Georgian infantry brigades created since the end of the war will soon rise
from one to three. In other words, we are talking about a 50-100 per cent increase
in the Armys strength, if the combat-ready reserve is taken into account.
Of course, there is still the issue of arming the new brigades. But the
problem is not insurmountable. There is no international arms embargo on
Georgia; deliveries continue to be made on the previously signed contracts, and
the country can also count on foreign aid.
Apart from the growing numerical strength, the Georgian Army has also
become better trained following a change of emphasis in its training program.
Before the war, the main focus was on low-intensity conflicts and operations as
part of coalition forces. Now, much more attention is being paid to combined-
arms operations, as suggested by recent exercises conducted by the Georgian
army.
14,15,16
These events have focused on defense against tanks and armor, which
may suggest that defensive operations are now the top priority for the Georgian
command. That may be because completing the reform of the Georgian army
is going to take more time. Defensive preparations could therefore be meant
to deter Russia from launching a pre-emptive attack before the Georgian
army becomes a serious threat to Russian policy in the Caucasus. The scale of
Georgias preparations for defense against a large-scale assault can be illustrated
by a recent Georgian newspaper report. The paper said a conflict had broken
out between an officer of the 5
th
Infantry Brigade and a group of privates who
had to spend the previous three months building fortifications.
17
But offensive
operations are also included in the scenario of some military exercises, including
Shield 2009, a month-long event that ended on July 30, 2009. It involved an
assault by a battalion-size tactical group backed by cannon and rocket artillery,
tanks, aviation, air defense and special task forces.
In June 2009, Georgia further expanded its military training capability
by setting up a tank training center in Akhaltsikh, using the expertise of the
Krtsanisi schools tank training department. The first group of servicemen,
a mechanized company of the 1
st
Infantry Brigade, started the course in
Akhaltsikh on July 1, 2009, and completed it on July 30.
18
It must also be taken into account that back in August 2008 the bulk of
the fighting was done by the relatively fresh recruits of the 4
th
and 5
th
Infantry
Brigades, while the veteran 1
st
Brigade was serving in Iraq. Now that brigade
has returned back to Georgia, and soldiers of the 4
th
and 5
th
Brigades have had
two years to improve their skills.
Georgias Air Force lost large amounts of equipment in August 2008,
including: three Mi-24 attack helicopters and one Mi-14BT; three An-2 aircraft;
five OSA SAM system vehicles; two launchers and two loaders of the Buk-M1
SAM system, and possibly a Spyder-SR SAM system vehicle; several radars,
including the 36D6-M station near Gori and the P-180U station near Poti. For
obvious reasons, all the SAM vehicles were seized by the Russian ground troops
rather than being destroyed from the air.
Russian aviation was not very effective in suppressing the Georgian air
defenses. Nevertheless, those defenses completely failed to protect not just the
whole territory of the country (a task which they were not equipped for in any
event) but even the key military facilities (such as the army and naval bases)
or Georgian troop deployments. The miscalculations made before the war (in
other words, insufficient funding of the air defense system) became one of the
main reasons for Georgias military defeat. The Georgian government is well
aware of this, and bolstering the countrys air defense capability has become a
priority in recent military policy papers.
19
Practical implementation of those plans depends on a whole number of factors,
including the availability of resources, the willingness of other countries to sell
air defense systems to Georgia, and prospects for receiving such systems as part
of foreign military aid programs. Even in the worst-case scenario for Georgia, its
air defenses will be bolstered by new deliveries on pre-war contracts (signed with
Ukraine, Israel and Poland). And under the best-case scenario especially if hopes
for foreign aid come to fruition Georgias air defense capability may actually
improve in leaps and bounds. That will significantly reduce the vulnerability to
Russian aviation of Georgian troops and, to some extent, Georgian territory as
well. Meanwhile, one indication of Georgias efforts to beef up its air defenses is
the increase in the numerical strength of the Georgian Air Force (which includes
air defense units) from 1,813 people in 2008 to 2,971 in 2009.
20
Since the
number of aviation units has remained the same, the growth must have come
from air defense troops.
Nevertheless, the lack of fighter aviation leaves the Georgian air defenses
fairly exposed. Even if Georgia manages to obtain a few fourth-generation
fighters, proper training of pilots will take a long time, and Russia will still
have an overwhelming superiority in numbers. At the very best, the putative
Georgian fighter jets might force Russia to divert for a time its latest Su-27SM
and MiG-29SMT front-line fighters from ground attack missions.
Meanwhile, recent reports suggest the possibility that the Georgian Air Force
might actually cease to exist as a separate service, and all its personnel and equipment
will be transferred to the Army. If these plans are implemented, the acquisition of
fighter jets by Georgia becomes unlikely. What is more, the countrys only squadron
of attack aircraft could be disbanded, and its Su-25 planes sold off. That move
would be similar to what Macedonia did to its Air Force a few years ago.
The Georgian Navy, which was only marginally useful to begin with, lost
both of its fast attack craft (missile), the Tbilisi and the Dioscuria, in August
2008. The boats formed the core of the Navys combat capability. As a result,
the Navy ceased to exist as a separate service in October 2008. Its remaining
boats were transferred to the Coast Guard. But it cannot be ruled out that
coastal defense units armed with anti-ship missiles and/or artillery systems will
be created as part of the Army.
The Five Day War put in stark relief numerous deficiencies in the training
of Georgian officers especially senior commanders. Some of them have been
sacked and sent into retirement or ordered to take additional training after the
war. Regular clean-ups in the top military command (during which not only
professionalism but also personal loyalty to the Saakashvili regime are taken into
account) have continued during the post-war period. Georgia has also rolled out
a new senior officer training program. It includes 10-week courses for battalion
commanders and brigade HQ chiefs (the first 16 officers completed the course
in late 2008)
21
and short two-week courses in Krtsanisi for commanders of
brigades and smaller units.
22
The length of the existing Captain Career Courses
has been increased to 23 weeks. The number of officers enrolled at any one
time has also risen.
23,24
On the whole, Georgian officers have become better trained since August
2008. But the countrys political leadership still meddles on a grand scale in
military appointments. As a result, professional qualities often become secondary to
considerations of political loyalty to the regime. On the other hand, the importance
of that loyalty has been demonstrated very clearly by the mutiny in May 2009 of the
Mukhrovani tank battalion, which was subsequently disbanded.
Georgias defense spending has shot up since Mikhail Saakashvili came to
power.
25,26
It peaked in 2007-2008 at 1,495m and 1,545m lari, respectively, rising
sharply from 369m in 2005 and 685m in 2006. But it must be taken into account
that the 2008 figure includes spending to the tune of 138m lari on the rebuilding
of military infrastructure damaged during the war. Also, more money was spent
on army upkeep in 2008 that in the previous year due to the rise in the number of
servicemen and the size of their pay. The Defense Ministrys 2009 budget stood
at 897m lari, and the 2010 figure has been set at 749.5m.
27
Georgias spending on military procurement programs also peaked in 2007-
2008. Deliveries on the contracts signed during those two years continued in
2009, i.e. after the end of hostilities in August 2008. Georgian soldiers had not
been fully trained by the time the war began in the use of the new weapons
delivered under the contracts. Some of those weapons were stored in warehouses
and seized by the Russian army as spoils of war, including several upgraded
T-72 tanks, a number of BMP-1U infantry fighting vehicles in Gori and a
Buk-M1 SAM battery in Senaki.
28,29
The Georgian army was therefore unable
to make the full use of all its newly acquired weapons.
Procurement spending fell in 2009 compared to the two previous years. But
it is only in the post-war period that the spending spree of 2007-2008 was actually
converted into greater fighting ability of the Georgian army, with deliveries still
continuing on many of the contracts signed before the war. That includes the
purchase of the Turkish Ejder armored personnel carriers.
30
It is only now that
soldiers are being trained in the use of the new weapons. It is therefore safe to say
that the Georgian armed forces (with the exception of the Navy) have become
better equipped since August 2008, despite all the losses sustained during the
war. Large amounts of hardware were lost back then, but it was only a small
fraction of the total. The category of equipment in which Georgia had suffered
the greatest losses, percentage-wise, was tanks. But even here, most of the units
lost were the older T-72 tanks bought second-hand from Eastern Europe.
On the whole, there is little doubt that Georgia has not only restored
its fighting ability since the end of the war, but actually increased it quite
substantially compared to August 2008. Nevertheless, the post-war reform of
the Georgian army is not yet complete. More time is needed to finish the creation
of a combat-capable reserve, give the troops more experience in classic combat
operations rather that the counterinsurgency warfare they had been focusing on
in the past, and train them in the use of the new equipment. It is therefore not
before 2010 or even 2011 that Georgia can consider another attempt to restore its
territorial integrity provided of course that the government in Tbilisi is realistic
about its chances. At present, that government is interested in preventing a
resumption of large-scale hostilities, and its main emphasis for now is on defense.
If and when Georgia decides that its army is strong enough to repel an assault by
troops of the Russian North Caucasus Military District (with reinforcements sent
from other districts), it may choose to start a small war on the territory of South
Ossetia and Abkhazia. A Georgian offensive would be especially likely in those
districts of the two republics where the Russian military presence is not very well
established, such as Kodori, Gali and Leningori (Akhalgori). Hostilities there
could then lead to further escalation of the conflict.
Post-war reform of the Russian army in the context of confrontation with Georgia
The post-war reform of the Georgian army has already improved its
fighting ability in classic warfare. Meanwhile, the positive effects of Russias
comprehensive army reform will take more time to materialize. For now, the
Russian army has actually become weaker than in was in August 2008 in many
respects, especially in terms of its numerical strength.
31,32
The North Caucasus Military District will shoulder the brunt of the Russian
military effort in any conflict with Georgia, so it deserves to be the focus of this
study. Changes in the numerical strength of the district (as well as the whole
Army) are linked to the transition to a new brigade structure, with the old
divisions being abolished and the numbers cut across the entire armed forces.
The old composition of the North Caucasus district included three combined-
arms divisions and five independent brigades. The new one will comprise: two
military bases (the 4
th
in South Ossetia and the 7
th
in Abkhazia, both the size of
a brigade, with the possibility of stationing some of their manpower in Maykop
and Vladikavkaz); nine independent motorized rifle, mountain motorized rifle
and mountain reconnaissance brigades; and the 8
th
Independent Motorized Rifle
Mountain Brigade, formed from the rump of the former 2
nd
Taman Motorized
Rifle Division and now being transferred from the Moscow Military District to
Borzoy in Chechnya.
33,34
There have also been reports of the experimental 100
th

Reconnaissance Brigade being formed in Mozdok.
In the other Russian military districts, many of the divisions from
which the new brigades are being formed are skeleton-strength formations.
But in the North Caucasus Military District, most of the existing divisions
maintained permanent-readiness status and were fully manned. That is why
the transformation (i.e. downsizing) of the North Caucasus divisions into
brigades has led to an actual overall reduction in the number of tank and
motorized rifle battalions, despite the arrival of the additional brigade from
the Moscow Military District. To illustrate, there was a total of 65 such
battalions in the North Caucasus Military District divisions and brigades in
August 2008. By the end of 2009, that number was expected to fall to 40 as
part of the reform.
Considering the nature of the situation in the ethnic autonomies of the Russian
North Caucasus, the reduction in the number of tank battalions and especially
motorized rifle battalions stationed there has some serious repercussions. These
units play a stabilizing role in the autonomous republics. Their presence keeps a
lid on illegal armed formations there, and acts as a deterrent for militants hoping
to overrun and take under their control entire towns. Those militants know that
they will be torn to pieces in the event of a confrontation with heavily armed
regular troops. Defense Ministry formations also act as back-up for the lightly
armed Interior Ministry and FSB forces, including the Border Guards, providing
artillery support and armor when the need arises.
Now that the conflict between Georgia and its former autonomies has
degenerated into a Georgian-Russian conflict, it is quite likely that tensions in
the Russian North Caucasus will increase due to Georgias direct or indirect
support for the militants. That support can come in the form of unimpeded
transit of people, weapons and resources via Georgian territory. Tbilisi may also
choose to turn a blind eye to any attempts by the militants to recruit supporters
or set up bases in Georgia.
The remote Russian border guard stations in Ingushetia, Chechnya and
Dagestan are especially vulnerable to attacks by militants operating from Georgian
territory. The proximity of the targets on the territory of those autonomies to
Georgia potentially enables militants to attack using heavy infantry weapons and
in large formations, then quickly withdraw back to Georgia.
The threat of an escalation in the North Caucasus, with the militants
becoming ever bolder, means that the pressure on the Russian army units
stationed in the autonomies, especially the reconnaissance and combat
formations, is bound to increase. Slashing the numbers of combat battalions as
part of the reform might therefore have adverse effects on stability in the ethnic
autonomies; it will reduce Russias freedom of maneuver in deploying the newly
formed brigades stationed there in other areas. As a result, the North Caucasus
Military Districts ability to send reinforcements to the aid of the Russian forces
deployed in Abkhazia and South Ossetia may be limited.
On the other hand, the increase in the number of combat support and
logistics units should make the new brigades more autonomous, which is quite
important in this particular theater. But far from all the new North Caucasus
Military District brigades will actually be able to make use of that advantage in
practice. The list of brigades that can definitely be spared for action in Georgia
without any restrictions is very short. It includes the successor brigades of the 20
th

Motorized Rifle Division based in Volgograd the 20
th
Rifle Brigade and the 56
th
Independent Airborne Assault Brigade as well as the
205
th
Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade from Budennovsk. But all three of
those brigades are quite far away from Georgia, especially the ones in Volgograd.
There problem, therefore, is that Russia may have a lot of armed strength
in the North Caucasus Military District, i.e. quite close to Abkhazia and
South Ossetia. But much of that strength may be largely unavailable for
combat action in the two republics or in Georgia itself if, for example, Russian
troops are tied up fighting militants in the ethnic autonomies. There are other
brigades which are not constrained in the same way - but they are stationed
relatively far from the conflict zone and will take much longer to deploy. The
Russian government is well aware of this. Its solution is to compensate for the
falling troop numbers by their greater fighting ability. One key element of that
strategy is the rearming of the North Caucasus troops using newly procured
weapons and some of the better equipment released as part of the ongoing
army restructuring in other parts of Russia. The older T-62 tanks and early
T-72 versions are being replaced by the T-72B/BM/BA and T-90A models. The
districts fleet of light armor now has some new BMP-3 and MT-LB 6MA
vehicles. Apart from better specifications, all this equipment is also relatively
new and therefore in a much better technical condition. That will reduce the
non-combat losses, which plagued the 19
th
and 42
nd
Motorized Rifle Divisions
during the lengthy marches from their bases to South Ossetia in 2008.
As the number of combat units is growing in the Georgian army and falling
in the Russian North Caucasus Military District, reinforcements might have to
be brought in from elsewhere in Russia. Troops from the Moscow and Volga-
Urals Districts would be the quickest to arrive. But there are two problems.
First, troop numbers in those two districts have also been cut as part of
the reform, including the tank and motorized rifle battalions (though some
of the disbanded units were skeleton-strength formations anyway). And the
8
th
Independent Motorized Rifle Mountain Brigade has already been relocated
from the Moscow district to Chechnya. The two districts ability to send
reinforcement to the Caucasus is therefore limited.
And second, the troops would have to be brought in by rail. If they are
to arrive before it is too late, they will need to receive their marching orders
well in advance - which would be problematic if it is Georgia who initiates the
hostilities. Airlifting these troops, with all their heavy armor, would be difficult
and all the available transports will in any case be taken up by the airborne
assault forces being rushed to the conflict zone.
A more rational solution would therefore be to keep enough heavy armor
at the warehouses in the former Georgian autonomies. This equipment
could then be used to field additional combined-arms brigades manned by
personnel airlifted from other districts. The solution is especially practical in
Abkhazia, with its two suitable airfields. And it is in Abkhazia that the shortage
of heavy troop formations is especially obvious, since most of the Russian
brigades stationed in the area are relatively lightly armed. Unless more tanks,
self-propelled artillery and MLR systems are brought in well in advance, their
shortage may become a real problem in the event of another war.
The ongoing Russian military reform has not affected just the Army.
The Russian Air Force has seen some restructuring as well. That includes
the decision to disband many aviation formations whose fighting ability was
limited by the venerable age of their aircraft and a shortage of trained pilots.
These units have now been transformed into airbases. The new airbases are
relatively small, but they are much better equipped and staffed, and therefore
more useful in battle.
Nevertheless, the overall number of aircraft in the Russian Air Force has
been declining as old Soviet-made planes are being decommissioned. That
trend has, if anything, accelerated in 2009. The remaining aircraft are forced
to take up the slack, and will therefore reach the end of their service life sooner
than they would have otherwise.
But there have also been some positive changes in the Russian Air Force since
2008, which will be quite relevant in the event of another war with Georgia:
The Russian Air Force now has forward airbases (including helipads)
in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. That will improve its ability to support
ground operations. The helipad in Djava, however, is vulnerable to
Georgian artillery, especially if cluster warheads are used. The problem
can be addressed by building reinforced concrete hangars.
Helicopter units in the North Caucasus have taken first deliveries of the
latest Mi-28N and Ka-52A attack helicopters. The new machines are
much more capable than the old Mi-24s. Nevertheless, the currently
available versions are not quite ready for prime time. Their engines are not
powerful enough for mountainous terrain, and their onboard defensive-
aids suites are fairly limited. The North Caucasus units have also received
the Mi-8MTV-5 and Mi-8AMTSh utility helicopters.
35
The level of training in the Air Force has also improved.
Nevertheless, the effect of all those positive changes on the Air Forces fighting
ability is largely predicated on the level of financing. Against the backdrop of the
world financial crisis, this problem is becoming especially serious.
The negative developments since August 2008 also include a significant
reduction in the numbers of ground attack aircraft stationed near the conflict
zone. The number of the Su-24 frontline bombers in the North Caucasus
district units was expected to fall from 93 to 54 by the years end. That could
have serious adverse effects on the Russian aerial interdiction capability in the
region, and the Air Forces ability to deliver air strikes against military and
civilian infrastructure targets in Georgia. On the other hand, some of those
tasks can be performed by the new MiG-29SMT multirole fighters, which were
turned down by Algeria and are now being delivered to the Russian Air Force
instead. But that will require proper training of their pilots.
On the whole, it is safe to conclude that Russias tactical capability has gone
up since the Five Day War, while its operational capability has gone down. That
last circumstance requires greater use of short-range attack missile systems such
as Tochka and Iskander.
The effectiveness of the Russian Air Force in any new conflict will largely
depend on the state of Georgian air defenses. If Georgia bolsters its air defense
system in numbers as well as in quality compared to August 2008, Russian
aviation may find it much less easy to operate in the Georgian airspace, and suffer
greater losses. That will be especially likely in the event of a protracted war.
Apart from the reform of frontline and army aviation, the ongoing cuts
in military transport aviation will also have serious effects on the outcome of
a possible Russian-Georgian conflict. These cuts will affect Russias ability
rapidly to deploy reinforcements and keep the ground troops in the conflict
zone well supplied. It is quite likely that military transport aviation will only
have enough capacity to airlift the airborne assault troops stationed in the
Moscow and Leningrad military districts. Ground troops will have to resort to
rail transport.
Changes in the Russian naval strength do not impinge directly upon the
conflict since Georgias own Navy has ceased to exist as a separate armed
service. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the 77
th
Marines Brigade, which
is attached to the Caspian Flotilla, may lose part of its strength. That would
weaken Russias military strength in Dagestan.
36
Another thing to consider is the effect of the ongoing military reform on
personnel structure. Deep cuts have been made in the officer corps; warrant
officers have been abolished almost entirely; and the number of conscripts have
risen following the reduction of the term of conscription service to just one year.
Reductions and reorganizations in the officer corps have caused a certain
degree of disruption. Although the measures themselves are entirely justified,
their effect in the short term will be to weaken the Russian army. Motivation
of the remaining officers may also be affected by bleaker prospects for career
growth. Unless that motivation is bolstered by better pay and perks, the ongoing
problem with commanding officers in the Russian army will continue unabated.
The transition period also opens up lots of opportunities for cronyism, which
could lead to professional soldiers leaving the army and being replaced by people
whose moral and professional qualities are not up to standard.
The nearly complete abolition of warrant officers will, in the short term,
reduce the Russian armys fighting ability, until the voids are filled by properly
trained sergeants or civilian staff, where possible. Since the sergeant training
program is only just now gaining momentum, it will be a while before this
particular negative consequence of the reform is overcome.
Meanwhile, reducing the length of conscription service to one year also has
a number of repercussions. On the plus side, Russias reserve of trained soldiers
will now grow at a faster rate. But the usefulness of this effect is not that great,
since the number of military formations that will rely on the reserve of former
conscripts during mobilization is being slashed.
On the minus side, there is a whole range of consequences. The length of
active service has been reduced. More conscripts will now have to be drafted to
compensate for the shorter duration of conscription service, including people
with poor health, insufficient level of education and even criminal record. Also,
the conscript servicemen will now have less incentive to remain in the army as
professional soldiers.
The bottom line is that the personnel reform in the Russian army will
substantially reduce its fighting ability in the short term. Another escalation of
the Georgian-Russian conflict may come well before this reform starts to yield
the expected results.
On the whole, the positive trends in the Russian army during the post-war
period have not yet begun to outweigh the negative ones. The armys fighting
ability may not have deteriorated compared to August 2008, but it certainly has
not improved, either.
Possible effects of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the balance
of power between Georgia and Russia
Any assessment of the shifting balance of power in the region must take into
account the effects of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the
breakaway Azeri autonomy of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan has embarked on
a large arms procurement program in recent years
37
, destabilizing the existing
status quo. Alarmingly, the country has not submitted any official reports to
the UN Register of Conventional Arms since 2007. That suggests that it may
have already breached the ceilings on the numbers of heavy weapons established
in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty. Some unofficial sources
confirm that suspicion.
At a military parade on June 26, 2008, Azerbaijan trotted out some of its
latest hardware. The list includes: Smerch and Israeli-made IMI Lynx MLR
systems (the latter system was armed with long-range and high-accuracy EXTRA
rockets); 2S7 Pion 203 mm self-propelled guns; Tochka (SS-21) short-range
ballistic missile systems; UAVs; and MiG-29 fighters bought from Ukraine.
The addition of the latest Israeli-made weapons to the powerful and relatively
modern Soviet-designed systems in the Azeri arsenals is a major milestone in
the countrys rearmament program.
Thanks to a large disparity in the two countries export revenue, tax revenue
and spending levels, Azerbaijan may very soon achieve clear superiority over
Armenia in the fighting ability of its army. Armenia is no longer able to afford
this arms race on its own. Russia, which is Yerevans ally and fellow member of
the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), must therefore provide
adequate support. And merely handing down to the Armenian some of the
obsolete weapons of the Russian troops stationed in the country will no longer
be enough.
Two relatively simple and effective ways are available to neutralize the Azeri
threat to Armenia. The first is to supply the country with sufficient numbers of
modern weapons (either completely new or of the more recent Soviet designs).
Some of those weapons could be sold at a discount or even given as a gift of
aid. The second is to beef up the Russian military contingent in the republic
by rearming it and increasing its numbers. That would release the Armenian
troops currently guarding the border with Turkey and Georgia to focus on
Azerbaijan. The Russian troops in Armenia can also provide direct military
assistance if things go badly for Yerevan.
Both of these options will have very direct effects on the balance of power in
the Georgian-Russian conflict. A rearmed and therefore more capable Armenian
army would theoretically pose a threat to Georgian interests in Djavakhetia and
to the civilian and military facilities south of Tbilisi.
In practice, the Armenian army would probably focus on Azerbaijan and
desist from any hostile actions against Georgia. But the Russian troops stationed in
Armenia could under certain conditions take part in military action against Georgia.
They can be used in Djavakhetia to support the ethnic Armenian separatists, or to
attack Tbilisi from the south. That would enable the Russian forces to surround the
Georgian capital, seize the main Georgian airbase in Marneuli and approach other
airbases on the southern fringes of Tbilisi. The distance from the Armenian border
to Marneuli is only 35 km, and to Tbilisi 65 km.
It is therefore very relevant for the purposes of this discussion that as part
of the ongoing military reform, Russia intends to station a permanent-readiness
force at its 102
nd
Military Base in Armenia. That force will be made of two
independent motorized rifle brigades (the 73
rd
and 76
th
).
If the Russian troops stationed in Armenia are bolstered in terms of their
numbers and equipment to neutralize the imbalance between the Armenian
and Azeri armies, that will also give Russia additional capability against Georgia
from the south. Georgia would be forced to react by relocating troops to cover
Tbilisi and Marneuli, thereby reducing its armed strength near the Ossetian and
Abkhaz borders. And in the event of a large-scale Russian offensive against the
capital Tbilisi, Russian troops in Armenia can make a significant contribution
to the operation.
Positional gains and losses
As a result of the war, Georgia lost the following territories: the Kodori Gorge
in Abkhazia, or the so-called Upper Abkhazia; the Bolshoy Liakhvi enclave in
South Ossetia, also called the Liakhvi Corridor (a stretch of the Trans-Caucasus
motorway to the north of Tskhinvali); villages of the Malyy Liakhvi (to the east
of Tskhinvali); villages of the Proni Gorge (to the west of Tskhinvali); Akhalgori
District (the Georgian-controlled part of the former South Ossetian autonomys
Leningori District) in the east; and villages in the Perevi area in the west of South
Ossetia. Russia lost a military base in Zugdidi District, western Georgia.
The military and political importance of all those territories to the two
sides varies, and will be discussed in more detail.
Contrary to popular belief, Upper Abkhazia (Kodori Gorge) was not a
convenient foothold for launching an offensive against Sukhumi, for a whole
number of reasons. The narrow mountain road along the river Kodori is not
adequate for large troop movements. Abkhaz troops had strong defensive
positions in the area of Tsebelda-Abtkel, which any attack against Sukhumi from
that direction would have to overcome first. Supplying a large attacking force in
the gorge would be very difficult. Setting up air defenses and communications
in that terrain would also be a problem. Finally, the attackers would be trapped
in the gorge in the event of Russian or Abkhaz forces breaking through to
Djvari and thereby cutting off the Georgian troops from the rest of Georgia.
The threat of just such a scenario was one of the key reasons why the Georgian
garrison abandoned its positions in Kodori in August 2008.
On the other hand, the Kodori Gorge was a military asset for Georgia as a
staging post for reconnaissance and sabotage operations. That is what the gorge
essentially was under President Shevardnadze. Meanwhile, the vulnerability
of the gorge in the event of a large-scale attack meant that the territory was
a suitcase without a handle for Georgia. Its defense would require a lot of
troops, of which the Georgians did not exactly have a surfeit, and posed a
serious risk of the Georgian garrison being trapped and picked apart at leisure
by the opposing force. This is why militarily the loss of Kodori has actually
been a boon for Georgia. It now has a much more manageable line of attack or
defense; troops previously tied up holding the gorge have been released for more
important operations; and the adversary has been drawn into an area where
serious losses can be inflicted upon it in a small war using the Svan refugees,
who know the gorge very well.
For Russia and Abkhazia, the Kodori Gorge is a political gain. It is also
an opportunity to prevent this area from being used as a base for saboteurs
targeting not just Abkhazia but also Karachayevo-Cherkessia. On the other
hand, the Defense Ministry and Border Guard Service formations in Kodori
are in a fairly vulnerable position. The mountainous and forested terrain here is
very convenient for guerrilla warfare. Communications with the coastal areas of
Abkhazia are vulnerable, and the nearest supply bases are quite far away. Also,
stationing troops for garrison duty in the Kodori Gorge weakens the Russian
contingent in the main coastal areas of Abkhazia.
Meanwhile, the loss of the Russian base in Georgias Zugdidi District has
is upsides and downsides for Moscow. On the plus side, Russia no longer has to
worry about the peacekeepers main compound and its outposts being attacked
by the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade in Senaki. By itself, the Russian battalion in Zugdidi
would be a liability in the event of another war. But compared to the Russian
garrisons in Kodori, Leningori or Perevi, the Zugdidi base was in a much better
position. Reinforcements could reach it very quickly from Gal District and the
coastal regions, and air support could be provided from Gudauta.
In our opinion, any advantages of the Russian withdrawal from Zugdidi District
are far outweighed by the disadvantages. These include the loss of a foothold near
Mount Urta, which overlooks the Senaki-Zugdidi motorway and the Georgian
positions along the lower Inguri. That foothold could be used to harass Georgian
troops moving along the motorway; it was an excellent vantage point for artillery
spotters, and a base for reconnaissance and sabotage squads. On the whole, Russias
loss of military presence in Zugdidi District makes it easier for Georgia to deploy its
forces on the border with Abkhazia, as well as to assemble and supply troops that
can be used against the Russian and Abkhaz forces in Kodori.
In other developments since August 2008, the Russian Air Force now has
a home station in Gudauta, and the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Ochamchira.
They will now be able to provide greater support for ground operations in the
region, and it will take less time to deploy additional aviation and naval forces
in Abkhazia during a threat period or actual hostilities.
In Ossetia, Russias greatest gain has been the Georgian enclave of Bolshoy
Liakhvi (the Liakhvi Corridor). It has halved journey time between Djava and
Tskhinvali by opening the shorter route via the Trans-Caucasus Motorway
instead of the Zarskaya detour road. Djava itself, which is crucial for the defense
of South Ossetia, is now much less vulnerable, and Tskhinvali is safe from
attack from the north. For Djava, the Liakhvi Corridor was a major threat as
a staging post for a Georgian attack. It could also be used as a base for lightly
armed Georgian forces that could act as artillery spotters, set up ambushes, lay
landmines and attack the local military base (especially the vulnerable helipad)
using heavy infantry weapons and mortars. It must be said that the ethnic
cleansing of the Georgian population in the enclave conducted by the Ossetians
after the war has substantially reduced the threat to communications between
Djava and Tskhinvali posed by Georgian reconnaissance and sabotage teams.
The fact that the ethnic Georgian villages in Malyy Liakhvi and the Proni
Gorge are now under South Ossetian control has eased communications between
Znaur and Leningori Districts. These newly occupied positions also make it
easier to defend Tskhinvali and the overlooking high points from the northeast
and northwest. On the whole, Georgias loss of control of its enclave villages
near Tskhinvali has substantially strengthened the positions of the Russian and
Ossetian troops in the area. It has also made it easier to move troops between
Tskhinvali and Djava, and to bring in reinforcements from Russia.
On the other hand, the military advantages of stationing Russian garrisons
in the Perevi village and Leningori (Akhalgori) District of South Ossetia are
hard to discern. Both of these garrisons are largely cut off from the rest of
the Russian forces due to poor communications infrastructure. The roads
here become next to impassable during heavy rain or snow, and are always
vulnerable to sabotage because of the mountainous forest-covered terrain and
close proximity of the Georgian border. Even using Border Guard Service troops
to patrol the Ossetian border in this area will not be much help in preventing
infiltration from Georgia. The stretch of the border here is far too long to be
held reliably by the small number of Russian border guards to be stationed in
South Ossetia.
Perevi does not have any strategic importance and can be abandoned, if need
be. But Leningori can be quite useful to Russia under certain circumstances.
To begin with, the distance from Leningori to Tbilisi is just over 50 km,
and the road is in a fair condition. Theoretically, the town can be used to
mount a ground offensive against the Georgian capital, or to shell it using long-
range artillery and rocket systems.
Second, the main communications between Tbilisi and Gori (and the rest
of western Georgia) pass near Leningori District borders and can be harassed
from there.
Third, an attack from Leningori against Dusheti District to the east can be
helpful in the event of troop movement against Tbilisi from Vladikavkaz, along
the Military Georgian Road.
Fourth, Leningori can be a useful staging post for reconnaissance and sabotage
missions against Georgian communications and military targets near Tbilisi.
The Georgian government is well aware of all this, and restoring Georgian
control of this area is high on its list of priorities. Theoretically, there is a whole
number of circumstances than make achieving this goal militarily plausible.
The proximity of the Russian garrison in Leningori to Tbilisi poses a
number of problems for Russia. Georgia can quickly assemble an attacking force
to retake the area. At some point it may well decide that the threat posed by
Leningori is serious enough to attempt pre-emptive action. Such a development
would be all the more dangerous to the Russian garrison since it is separated
from the nearest reserves in Tskhinvali by 75 km of a dirt road winding across
mountainous and forested terrain along the border with Georgia. To illustrate,
the distance from the Russian-Ossetian border to Tskhinvali is 62 km along
the Trans-Caucasus motorway, and about 75 km if one leaves the motorway
to enter Tskhinvali from the Zarskaya detour road. Out of those 75 km, only
just over 30 is unsurfaced road. That means that the Leningori garrison is even
farther away from the main Russian forces in South Ossetia than the Russian
peacekeepers in Tskhinvali were from reinforcements at the Russian end of
the Roki tunnel in August 2008. The problem becomes especially serious in
spring time, when weather makes the Tskhinvali-Leningori road a real trial.
Work is under way to improve the road surface, but that is expensive and
time consuming. And it fails to address the remaining problems namely,
distance and vulnerability of communications to Georgian attack. The troops
in Leningori could well end up being cut off from the reserves, and unable
to retreat to Tskhinvali. Russia is well aware of this and has been working to
improve transport communications between the district and the rest of South
Ossetia. The ongoing work to improve the surface of the Tskhinvali-Leningori
road has already made this road usable all year round. There are also plans to
build a helipad near the town of Leningori.
Another weakness of the Leningori garrison is that it can be attacked not
just from the south, along the river Ksani, but also from Dusheti District from
the east. There is also a certain degree of vulnerability from the southwest
and from the north. In other words, reliable defense from all those directions
requires a large concentration of troops.
The distance from Leningori to Tskhinvali or Djava also makes it difficult
to provide artillery cover to the garrison there. In the event of resumed hostilities
in that area, the burden of providing cover for the Leningori troops will fall
on ground attack aviation and helicopters stationed near Djava. The helipad,
however, is vulnerable to Georgian long-range artillery and may be put out of
action. Meanwhile, the Georgian troops attacking Leningori will be covered
not just by theater air defenses but also by the Tbilisi air defense system.
Another vulnerability of the Russian troops in the district is that most
of its population are ethnic Georgians. That makes it easier for the Georgian
command to conduct reconnaissance and sabotage operations.
The obvious conclusion here is that the Russian military presence in
Leningori has its advantages as well as disadvantages. Leveraging the advantages
would require the presence of a much larger force, ideally the size of a motorized
rifle brigade. That would also address a whole number of threats which a larger
garrison need not fear. A small Russian force in Leningori is not really an asset
in the event of another war, but rather a liability. It is vulnerable and could well
be overrun at the very early stages of the conflict.
On the other hand, apart from the cost and logistical difficulties of
stationing large numbers of Russian troops in Leningori, such a move may
provoke Georgia into action. It would increase the vulnerability of Tbilisi and
the nearby communications. The Georgian response might range from creating
additional regular army or National Guard formations in this area to attempts
at retaking the district by force.
The decision taken in view of all the conflicting considerations has been
to station forces equivalent to a reinforced motorized rifle company and some
artillery in Leningori District. That appears to suggest that the command of
the Russian 4
th
Military Base does not expect much of this garrison. Its primary
task is to provide artillery support to the border guard outposts in the event of
armed incidents with Georgia. The garrison will not be able to hold Leningori
town on its own if a war breaks out. Neither is it likely to be able to cover the
deployment of a large force from the 4
th
Military Base if Georgia decides to
retake the territory by force.
The official size of the Russian troop contingent in South Ossetia, 3,700
servicemen, is not enough reliably to hold the territory, especially since that
territory is now larger than in August 2008. The insufficient size of the
local reserves is a risk for the remote Russian garrisons, especially the one in
Leningori. And if Russian troop numbers in South Ossetia fall even below that
level, the Defense Ministry will simply have to evacuate the remote garrisons.
That would essentially mean the return of the territories in question to Georgia,
since the Ossetians are unable to hold them on their own. All these concerns
have become especially pressing since South Ossetia has announced plans to
cut the size of its armed forces. Reductions will be achieved by reforming the
Ossetian army; also, some of its soldiers will sign up for service in the Russian
army as part of the Russian 4
th
Military Base in the republic. As a result, the
Russian Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and FSB forces in South Ossetia
will have to shoulder some of the burden previously borne by the Ossetian
troops. The fact that some Ossetian soldiers will now be serving in the Russian
army will translate into a mere change of color of their chevrons. Russian troop
numbers will grow on paper compared to August 2008, but not in practice.
Conclusions
The Georgian armed forces have restored and increased their fighting ability
since the end of hostilities in August 2008. Georgian troops that were serving
in Iraq have now returned home. New brigades have been formed, and some of
the old ones have completed their initial training. Deliveries have been made
on arms contracts signed back in 2007-2008. The military training system has
been reformed, with a change of emphasis from counterinsurgency operations
to fighting the Russian army. Georgia has also launched the reform of its
military reserve system. On the minus side is the large Georgian commitment
in Afghanistan and the current financial difficulties.
Meanwhile, the ongoing reform of the Russian army is having a serious impact
on its capabilities in the event of another war with Georgia. The number of tank
and motorized rifle battalions in the North Caucasus Military District has fallen.
The old personnel structure is now in disarray. The number of attack aircraft
stationed near Georgia has been cut although the new air bases in Abkhazia and
South Ossetia and the new helicopters now being delivered to the armed forces
will help to provide air cover to ground operations in the region. Russias ability to
rush in reinforcements from other parts of the country and airlift airborne troops
has been sapped by recent cuts in military transport aviation. On the other hand,
the ongoing rearmament of the North Caucasus Military District troops should
offset the falling numerical strength to some degree.
The balance of power in the Russian-Georgian conflict is also being shifted
by the growing military disparity between Armenia and Azerbaijan. That
disparity means that Russia will need to bolster the Armenian army and its
own military presence in the country. On the plus side, a larger Russian force in
Armenia can be used in the event of another war with Georgia to attack Tbilisi
and Marneuli from the south and/or via Djavakhetia and then Adjaria.
As a result of the Five Day War, Georgia has lost strategic footholds near
Tskhinvali. Those footholds could make it easier for Georgian troops to storm the
city, attack Djava and then reach the Roki tunnel. In Abkhazia, Georgia has lost a
convenient hideout for sabotage teams in the Kodori Gorge. But that loss has also
freed up Georgian forces for more important operations and removed the constant
threat of the Kodori garrison being surrounded and destroyed. For its part, Russia
has lost its positions in Georgias Zugdidi District, which it could use to slow down
Georgian deployment along the Inguri river, as well as to host artillery spotters and
special task force squads. One of the most important changes compared to August
2008 is that Russia is now in control of Leningori (Akhalgori) District of South
Ossetia, populated mostly by ethnic Georgians. That is both an opportunity for
Russia and a potential threat for the Russian garrison holding the district. There is
also the larger question of how reliable Russias defenses are in South Ossetia, given
that its contingent in the republic is not large, and some of the forces are dispersed
around the far-flung and semi-isolated territories.
The war in August 2008 obviously has not resolved the conflict between
Georgia and Russia. Neither has it weakened either side to the point of inability
to resume hostilities, with a fair chance of success. There is a clear risk of another
escalation (and a transformation of the conflict from Georgian-Ossetian to
Georgian-Russian format). For now, that conflict remains dormant. But it still
carries a great risk of instability, which could push one of the sides to start
another war, until there is a clear resolution one way or the other.
In the short term, the balance of forces could shift very noticeably in
Georgias favor. Russia might therefore be interested in the resumption of
hostilities in the near time frame so as to demilitarize Georgia by crushing its
armed forces and possibly forcing a change of leadership. Georgia, meanwhile,
is interested in maintaining the status quo at this stage, pending the completion
of its military reform and rearmament program. Once that is achieved, Georgia
might well initiate new hostilities.
1
Tseluyko V. Force Development and the Armed Forces of Georgia under Saakashvili //
Moscow Defense Brief, 3, 2008, P. 14-15.
2
Georgian Defense Ministry web site: http://www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=11&sm=0&id=1082.
3
Ibid http://www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=6.
4
Ibid http://www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=5&sm=4.
5
Ibid http://www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=5&sm=5.
6
Ibid http://www.mod.gov.ge/index.php?page=-10&Id=25&lang=1.
7
http://www.newsgeorgia.ru/official_statement/20100407/151345431.html.
8
Arabuli M. Georgian Artillery Continues Training // Defence Today, 18, 2008. P.1.
9
Georgian Defense Ministry web site, news report of June 18, 2009.
10
Ibid http://www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=11&sm=0&id=1309.
11
12
Tea Kerzdevadze New concept forms effective Georgian Reserve System //
Defence Today, 25, 2009. P.1.
13
Ibid.
14
15
16
Arabuli M. National Guards` 18
th
Anniversary // Defence Today, 18, 2008. P.1.
17
Kviris palitra newspaper, No 22, 2009 http://www.kvirispalitra.ge/palitra/frp_palitra.htm.
18
Eka Gakhokidze New armored center opens in Akhaltsikhe // Defence Today, 25, 2009. P.1.
19
Minister`s Vision, 2009, P.8.
20
Georgian Defense Ministry web site, http://www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=5&sm=7.
21
Georgian Defense Ministry web site, http://www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=11&sm=0&id=1153.
22
Command Post Exercises Completed // Defence Today, 17, 2008. P.3.
23
24
Shalva Londaridze Captains` Retraining Course Came to an End // Defence Today, 22, 2009. P.1.
25
26
Georgian Defense Ministry web site, http://www.mod.gov.ge/?l=E&m=6.
27
Ibid, http://www.mod.gov.ge/index.php?page=-10&Id=10&lang=1.
28
Barabanov M. The August War between Russia and Georgia // Moscow Defense Brief, 3, 2008, P. 11.
29
Voronov S. Ossetia In Fire (August 2008) // Frontline illustration, No 6, 2008, P 44-47.
30
http://www.ssm.gov.tr/EN/savunmasanayiimiz/ssurunleri/urunkara/Pages/
EJDER6x6TaktikTekerlekliZ%C4%B1rhl%C4%B1Ara%C3%A7.aspx.
31
Russian Defense Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda,
http://www.redstar.ru/2009/02/11_02/1_03.html.
32
Poroskov N. The Makarov Doctrine. http://www.vremya.ru/2009/99/4/230780.html.
33
http://www.ryadovoy.ru/forum/index.php?topic=422.0.
34
http://www.infodmitrov.su/panorama/596.html.
35
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1158808.
36
Russian Defense Ministry newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda http://www.redstar.ru/2009/05/21_05/2_02.html.
37
UN register data: http://disarmament.un.org/UN_REGISTER.nsf.
98
Russian Air Losses
in the Five Day War Against Georgia
Anton Lavrov
The extent of Russian air losses was one of the biggest surprises of the Five Day
War with Georgia in August 2008. The loss of several Russian aircraft during
such a short conflict with a much less powerful adversary was taken to suggest
that Georgias air defenses had proved exceptionally effective. However, a closer
analysis of the circumstances leading to the downing of the Russian planes
paints a different picture.
Georgian statements on Russian air losses conflict with official Russian reports.
According to the deputy chief of General Staff, Col. Gen. Anatoly Nagovitsyn,
Russia lost four aircraft, including three Su-25 attack aircraft and one Tu-22M3
long-range bomber. Meanwhile, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said on
August 12 that 21 Russian planes had been destroyed
1
. The Georgian media have
shown footage of the wreckage of just one Russian plane.
Russian MoD officials have not provided any further information
concerning the air losses. Moreover, they have never officially acknowledged the
loss of two Su-24M frontline bombers. However, media reports and unofficial
sources have provided enough information since the end of the war to fill in
most of the blanks.
100 Anton Lavrov
The first Russian air loss was an Su-25BM flown by Lt. Col. Oleg
Terebunsky of the 368
th
Attack Aviation Regiment (Budennovsk airbase). The
plane was shot down over the territory of South Ossetia near the Zarskiy pass,
between Djava and Tskhinvali. It was hit by a volley of several MANPAD
missiles fired by Russian servicemen at about 1800 on August 8
2
. An operator
of the Russian state television channel Vesti filmed the burning plane going
down, and then its wreckage. The footage was shown on Russian television
as the downing of a Georgian plane
3
. It appears that the plane was taken for
a hostile one and brought down by friendly fire because it was one of the very
first Russian sorties during the war. Neither the Russian units rushing into
South Ossetia, nor the South Ossetians themselves had been informed that
Russian aviation was now involved in the conflict. Moreover, four Georgian
Su-25s had conducted a bombing raid in the area just a few hours previously
4
,
so there was reason to believe they might return for another raid.
Lt. Col. Terebunsky managed to eject to safety. He came under heavy
small arms fire from South Ossetian and Russian forces during the descent,
but landed successfully. He was quickly found by the South Ossetian militia,
identified, handed over to the Russian troops and then evacuated.
The first and greatest success of the Georgian air defense system occurred
more than 24 hours after hostilities broke out. Early in the morning of August 9,
it shot down a Russian Tu-22M3 long-range bomber of the 52
nd
Guards Heavy
Bomber Aviation Regiment (Shaikovka airbase) over the village of Karbauli in
Georgias Sachkhere District
5
(about 50 km northwest of Gori). Contrary to early
media reports, the plane was not a reconnaissance aircraft. During a bombing raid
on the base of a Georgian infantry brigade, a group of Tu-22M3 bombers were
following the same route back home as they did to reach the target. According to
unofficial sources, they dropped from the usual altitude of 12,000 m to 4,000 m,
for unknown reasons. An anonymous Russian military source claims that the
aircraft came under fire from a Georgian Osa-AK/AKM (SA-8B) SAM system.
A few hours earlier, several Georgian Buk-M1 (SA-11) SAM systems had arrived
from Senaki to the area where the plane was lost. These systems are also well
capable of taking down an aircraft of that type. Whatever the missile was, it
caused major damage, and the bomber lost all onboard electricity systems. One
of the crewmen, second pilot Maj. Vyacheslav Malkov, ejected and was taken
prisoner by the Georgians. He had a compression fracture of three vertebrae and
a broken arm following hard landing. He was taken to a village hospital and then
transferred to a Tbilisi clinic. On August 19 Malkov was exchanged for several
Georgian war prisoners. The commander of the Tu-22M3, Lt. Col. Aleksandr
Koventsov, ejected after Malkov and disappeared without a trace. Search teams
later discovered the wreckage of his ejection seat, but his body was not found.
6

Later on, Georgia handed over to Russia a tissue sample of an unidentified body.
DNA analysis found a 95-per-cent match with Koventsovs mother. Additional
tests will be held to establish whether the body is indeed that of the missing pilot.
A few weeks after the war, a search party found the wreckage of the plane with
the bodies of the remaining crew in an inaccessible and sparsely populated area
of South Ossetia, near the border with Georgia. The crewmembers were Maj.
Viktor Pryadkin (navigator) and Maj. Igor Nesterov (weapons systems operator).
That same morning, at 1020 on August 9, Georgian air defense forces shot
down another Russian plane. This time it was an Su-24M frontline bomber
of the 929
th
State Flight Test Center (Akhtubinsk airbase).
7
It was flying in a
formation of three bombers, on a mission to raid Georgian artillery positions
8

near Shindisi village (between Gori and Tskhinvali). After the completion
of the first approach, the plane was hit in full view of numerous Georgian
eyewitnesses. Footage of the plane being struck and then going down in
flames was recorded by mobile phone cameras and soon made available on the
Internet.
9,10
According to one eyewitness,
11
two surface-to-air missiles missed
the plane, but the third found its target. Polish media reports claim that the
plane was hit from a Polish-made Grom 2 MANPAD system
12
.
The missile strike caused a major fire on board. The crew ejected, but a
fragment of the burning plane damaged the parachute of the navigator, Col.
Igor Rzhavitin, who was killed when he hit the ground. The commander, Col.
Igor Zinov, suffered serious burns and a concussion of the spine. He was taken
prisoner and brought first to the Gori military hospital, and then to Tbilisi,
where he was put in the same ward with Maj. Malkov. On August 19 the two
were exchanged for Georgian prisoners. The Su-24M crashed in a residential
backyard in the village of Dzerevi, without causing any casualties or damage on
the ground. The wreckage was filmed and shown on Georgian television on the
same day.
13
Photographs were later published in the Georgian magazine Arsenal
and in several foreign media outlets.
14
Just a few minutes later, at 1030 on August 9, an upgraded Su-25SM attack
aircraft was shot down. It was piloted by Col. Sergey Kobylash, commander of
the 368
th
Attack Aviation Regiment. A pair of attack aircraft, in which he was
the lead, was raiding a Georgian convoy moving along the Gori-Tskhinvali
road, south of Tskhinvali. At the conclusion of his first approach, the left
engine of Kobylashs plane was hit by a MANPAD missile. Kolybash had to
break off the attack and headed towards the base along with the wingman.
A short while later, flying over the southern edge of Tskhinvali at an altitude
of 1000m, the plane took a hit from another MANPAD system. The missile
destroyed the remaining right engine, and the plane was left without thrust.
The pilot tried to take the aircraft as far as possible from the front line in gliding
mode so as to eject over friendly territory. He ejected north of Tskhinvali and
landed in South Ossetia, in one of the villages of the Georgian enclave in the
102 Anton Lavrov
Bolshoy Liakhvi gorge. He was quickly picked up by a Russian Mi-8 combat
search and rescue helicopter of the 487
th
Independent Helicopter Regiment
(Budennovsk). He did not sustain any injuries during the ejection or landing.
15

It remains unclear who shot down Colonel Kobylashs Su-25SM. There were
no Georgian forces in Tskhinvali when his plane took the second missile hit
but there was a large concentration of them in the nearby villages. On the
other hand, about half an hour after the plane crashed, the South Ossetians
announced that they had shot down one of a pair of Georgian attack aircraft
that were on a mission to bomb Tskhinvali.
16
According to the Georgians,
however, they had ceased all air raids by August 9.
17
It therefore seems likely
that it was the South Ossetians who shot down Kobylashs already damaged
plane after taking him and his wingman for hostiles.
August 9 was the worst day of the campaign for Russian aviation, with a
loss of four planes. The fourth loss that day was an Su-25BM attack aircraft
piloted by Maj. Vladimir Edamenko of the 368
th
Attack Aviation Regiment.
His wingman, Capt. Sergey Sapilin, described the circumstances of that mission
to REN-TV.
18
Their pair of attack aircraft was assigned to provide close air
support to Russian convoys traveling from Djava to Tskhinvali. Right after
they passed the Caucasian ridge and entered the airspace of South Ossetia, the
crew saw several MiG-29 fighters approach. Unable to determine whether the
approaching MiGs were Russian, they took evasive maneuvers as a precaution.
As it turned out, the MiGs were indeed friendlies; they turned away once
they had visually identified the attack planes. Almost immediately after that,
over territory controlled by the Russian forces near Djava, Maj. Edamenkos
wingman received an automated warning that his aircraft was being tracked
by a radar from the ground, and then immediately saw the burning Su-25BM
of his lead going down in a nose dive.
19
Edamenko did not respond to radio
calls; nor did he make any attempt to eject from the plane, which suggests
that he was either severely injured or already dead. The aircraft hit the ground
and exploded; Maj. Edamenko was killed. The chief of the Russian Armys air
defense service, Maj. Gen. Mikhail Krush, later announced that a Georgian
Su-25KM had been destroyed by a Russian air defense system
20
. It appears
that he was in fact referring to Edamenkos plane.
Between 1500 and 1600 of August 9, NTV correspondent Aleksandr Viktorov
saw a Russian ZSU-23-4 Shilka self-propelled air defense gun system, which was
covering the Gufti bridge, open fire at an unknown air target. Wreckage of an Su-
25 was later found in the area, on the bank of the Bolshoy Liakhvi river near the
village of Itrapis some 1.6 km away from the bridge. Russia said the wreckage was
the Georgian attack aircraft shot down during the campaign. On September 5,
this wreckage was blown up by Russian Emergencies Ministry specialists because
it contained large numbers of damaged unguided rockets. Russian journalists
who visited the scene later on found markings on the debris identifying the plane
as belonging to the Russian Air Force.
The aircraft in question appears to have been Edamenkos plane, since all
Georgian planes had been grounded after Russian air defense systems were
brought into South Ossetia. The fact that the plane was not identified as a
friendly by the Russian fighters and the air defense system that shot it down may
suggest that its friend-or-foe identification system was not working properly.
The sixth and last Russian aircraft lost during the campaign was shot
down at the very end of the hostilities, at 1100 of August 11. It was an Su-24M
frontline bomber. According to unofficial sources in aviation circles, the plane
belonged to the 968
th
Testing and Training Combined Aviation Regiment of
the 4
th
Pilot Combat Training Center in Lipetsk
21
. A convoy of Russian troops
heading from Tskhinvali towards Gori mistakenly identified the Su-24M as
a hostile and fired several MANPAD missiles. The plane went down several
kilometers west of Tskhinvali, on South Ossetian territory.
22,23
The crew ejected
to safety and were evacuated. The wreckage fell in inaccessible mountainous
areas of South Ossetia.
24
Well after the end of combat operations, on the night of August 16-17, an
Mi-8MTKO utility helicopter belonging to the Border Guards of the Russian
FSB (12
th
Independent Air Regiment of the FSB) crashed in South Ossetia.
During a night landing at a makeshift helipad at the village of Ugardanta near
Djava, it collided with another helicopter on the ground (an Mi-24 of the 487
th

Budennovsk Helicopter Regiment), overturned and burnt down. Both helicopters
were destroyed by fire and the resulting detonation of ammunition on board. The
mechanic of the Mi-8MTKO, Senior Warrant Officer Aleksandr Burlachko,
was killed, and three other members of the crew suffered severe burns.
25

A total of four Russian Air Force servicemen died during the actual hostilities
in August 2008:
Major Vladimir Edamenko 368
th
Attack Aviation Regiment.
Major Igor Nesterov 52
nd
Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment.
Major Viktor Pryadkin 52
nd
Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment.
Colonel Igor Rzhavatin 929
th
State Flight Test Center.
Senior Warrant Officer Aleksandr Burlachko (12
th
Independent Air
Regiment of the FSB) died in the helicopter accident after the end of
combat operations in South Ossetia.
Col. Igor Zinov (929
th
State Flight Test Center) and Maj. Vyachelav
Malkov (52
nd
Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment) were downed
and taken prisoner. They were later exchanged for Georgian prisoners.
Lt. Col. Aleksandr Koventsov (52
nd
Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation
Regiment) is listed as missing in action.
104 Anton Lavrov
Russia lost a total of six aircraft during combat operations of the Five Day
War, including one Su-25SM, two Su-25BM, two Su-24M and one Tu-22M3.
Of these, two aircraft are known to have been downed by hostile fire,
three were probably hit by friendly fire, and the sixth case is uncertain.
The wreckage of five aircraft fell within the borders of South Ossetia. Only
one, the Su-24M of the 929
th
State Flight Test Centre, fell in Georgia.
Aside from the aircraft that were destroyed, several more Su-25 planes were
seriously damaged, though they all managed to return to base. Damage to
three Su-25SM of the 368
th
Attack Aviation Regiment was officially confirmed
by Vladimir Babak,
26
chief designer of the Sukhoi Design Bureau, and Yakov
Kazhdan, director of the 121
st
Aircraft Repair Plant.
27
Two of these planes were
piloted by Capt. Ivan Nechayev and Lt. Col. Oleg Molostov. It has also been
reported than another plane, an Su-25 of the 461
st
Attack Aviation Regiment
(Krasnodar) also sustained damage during the war.
28
The plane was piloted by
Maj. Ivan Konyukhov. All of those aircraft were hit by MANPAD missiles.
Konyukhovs plane appears to have been hit by Russian troops in another
friendly fire incident on August 11. There have been no reports of other types
of aircraft or helicopters sustaining damage during combat operations.
With six downed or damaged Su-25 aircraft, the Budennovsk 368
th
Attack
Aviation Regiment suffered the heaviest losses of equipment. It lost at least one
in every four of its aircraft, including the recently upgraded Su-25SM aircraft,
with some of its best-trained pilots, including the regiments commander.
Initial assessments of the effectiveness of Georgias air defense system were
clearly exaggerated. They were based solely on the numbers of Russian aircraft
lost, with no regard for the causes of those losses. Even though Georgias air
defense forces possessed such effective SAM systems as the Buk-M1, the Osa-
AK/AKM and the Spyder-SR, as well as a significant number of MANPADs,
29

they were unable to protect Georgian troops or territory. During the first day
of the war, on August 8, Georgias air defense system was still intact, and it had
radar control of the entire Georgian territory, the separatist provinces and the
surrounding areas. Nevertheless, it failed to down even a single Russian aircraft
that day, during which Russias military aviation flew dozens of sorties, raiding
targets not just in the theater of combat operations but deep in Georgian territory
as well, using almost exclusively unguided weapons. For example, Marneuli,
the main Georgian airbase located more than a hundred kilometers from the
conflict zone or from the border with Russia, close to Tbilisi and the Armenian
border, was raided three times on August 8. The small groups of Su-25 and Su-
24M aircraft that conducted the raids met with no resistance.
30
The two (or at
the very most, three) aircraft downed by Georgias air defenses were all hit in
the morning of August 9. From noon on that day and until the end of the war,
the Georgian forces were unable to destroy a single Russian aircraft.
During the entire war, Georgian air defenses managed to score only one hit
against a Russian aircraft from mobile air defense systems. The MANPAD systems
proved more useful, scoring at least three (but no more than six) hits, including one
near-miss that did not cause any serious damage to the armored Su-25.
The fact that at least half the Russian aircraft losses were friendly fire
incidents came as something of a shock. It has demonstrated that the system of
coordination, command and control of the Russian troops on the battlefield is
in a dire state. In the absence of any real coordination between the Army and
the Air Force, the two services were essentially waging two separate wars. Pilots
were not fully apprised of the situation on the ground. They were receiving
inaccurate and out of date intelligence. According to the commander of the
368
th
Attack Aviation Regiment, Col. Kobylash, at the start of the hostilities the
pilots did not even have any detailed information on the structure and strength
of the Georgian air defenses.
31
Russian ground forces also lacked information about the situation in the air,
and were not sure until the end of combat operations whether the Russian Air
Force had achieved air superiority. Although the Georgian Su-25 attack aircraft
conducted just one sortie in the early morning of August 8 and did not take to
the air again for the rest of the war,
32
Russian aircraft were frequently taken by
Russian and Ossetian forces for hostiles. They were fired upon even before they
could be identified accurately, and in the absence of any signs of aggression on
their part (although there is some evidence of friendly fire incidents in which
the pilots were the attackers.
33
) As a result, the Russian forces and Ossetian
militia fired at least 10 MANPAD missiles at Russian aircraft during the war.
They also used infantry combat vehicles guns, anti-aircraft machine guns
mounted on tanks, and handheld automatic weapons.
34
There were also reports
of problems with the friend-or-foe identification system,
35
which was used
only haphazardly when firing MANPADs. All these factors had contributed to
such a high number of Russia aircraft losses to friendly fire incidents.
1
www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2008/08/12/n_1255971.shtml.
2
Milkavkaz.net message board // www.milkavkaz.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=26078#26078.
3
Shown on Vesti television on August 8 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLIiOp_tv30)].
4
Interfax (http://www.interfax.ru/politics/news.asp?id=25736).
5
Nedelia s Mariannoy Maksimovskoy, 21.02.2009 - REN-TV
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s50BabE2B9Q].
6
Ibid.
7
Pilot Igor Rzhavitin, who died in Ossetia, served with the 929th State Flight Testing Center of the Rus-
sian Air Force // RIA Novyy region, www.nr2.ru/center/190689.html.
8
Pozdeev L. Fourth in the history of Revda // Oblastnaya gazeta (Yekaterinburg), October 18, 2008,
www.oblgazeta.ru/home.htm?st=5-1.sat&dt=18.10.2008.
9
www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Mh2DeC2JE.
106 Anton Lavrov
10
www.youtube.com/watch?v=foP047XmWM8.
11
Georgian weekly Kviris palitra 38/2008.
12
Rosjanie poraz`eni polskim Gromem 10.08.2009// Wprost,
http://www.wprost.pl/ar/168741/Rosjanie-porazeni-polskim-Gromem/.
13
Rustavi-2, 9.08.08 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcT3FYrFIuc].
14
Pictures of the Su-24M wreckage in Dzeveri at:
www.milkavkaz.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=29218#29218.
15
Interview with S. Kobylash, REN-TV Voennaya tayna
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTl3RoFl5Hc)].
16
Urgent! South Ossetian air defenses shoot down a second Georgian bomber //
cominf.org/node/1166477959).
17
Georgian magazine Arsenal, No 10, 2008 // Translation at d-avaliani.livejournal.com/13526.html.
18
Interview with S. Sapilina, REN-TV, Voyennaya tayna
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ3E-J4Y5dM].
19
Grishchenko N. Kings of speed to a Hero of Russia // Stavropolskaya pravda, September 26, 2008,
www.stapravda.ru/20080926/Avtokross_v_Budennovske_IX_etap_chempionata_Stavropolskogo_
kraya_33128.html.
20
Interview with M. Krush // Voenno-promyshlennyy Kuryer, No 50, 2008.
21
Forum Waronline.org [http://www.waronline.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=401966&sid=fbfa66ccdb197a
d9797ec85aad5d6cd8#40196].
22
Shavlokhova M. Four 200 cargoes during storm of Kvemo-Nikozi //
www.gzt.ru/politics/2008/08/12/223003.html.
23
Babchenko A. War and peace (forced) // Novaya gazeta, December 19, 2008
www.novayagazeta.ru/data/2008/color49/09.html.
24
Documentary film Kouti tis Pandoras by Greek telejournalist Kostas Vaxevani
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVQMoPQLt_c].
25
Decorated posthumously - Stavropol TV [http://www.atvmedia.ru/index.php?report=14775].
26
Grach vozmezdia Krasnaya zvezda [http://www.redstar.ru/2008/09/10_09/3_01.html].
27
Three Su-25 aircraft survived hits by Georgian missiles during combat in South Ossetia // RIA Novosti,
October 17, 2008, www.rian.ru/osetia_news/20081017/153414223.html.
28
Andreeva I. Hero of Russia .. Volnaya Kuban (Kransodar), February 20, 2009,
gazetavk.ru/?d=2009-02-20&r=28&s=2199.
29
Aminov S. Georgias Air Defense in the War with South Ossetia // Moscow Defense Brief, 3, 2008.
30
Official Chronology of Georgias MFA.
[http://www.mfa.gov.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=461&info_id=7289].
31
Interview with S. Kobylash, REN-TV [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTl3RoFl5Hc].
32
Georgian magazine Arsenal (translation at http://d-avaliani.livejournal.com/13526.html).
33
Forum Airforce.ru [http://forums.airforce.ru/showpost.php?p=38299&postcount=649].
34
Sokirko V. Twelve hours until death // Moskovskiy Komsomolets, August 12, 2008,
www.mk.ru/blogs/MK/2008/08/12/society/366011/.
35
Sukhoi.ru message board // www.sukhoi.ru/forum/showpost.php?p=1183674&postcount=1957.
State of the Georgian Army
by the End of Hostilities
Anton Lavrov
After Russia announced the end of hostilities at about noon on August 12,
2008, its troops proceeded to dismantle Georgian military infrastructure in
areas under Russian control. For more than two weeks, they also continued
seizing Georgian weapons and military equipment for removal to Russia. It is
during this period that Georgia sustained the bulk of its material losses during
the conflict. These losses need to be separated from those suffered during the
actual combat operations so as to get a clearer picture of the scale of the conflict
and the damage done during the fighting.
Personnel
According to official Georgian reports, some 170 Georgian servicemen were killed
or went missing in action during the war. Another 1,964 servicemen (including
reserves and police officers) were injured. Georgian Interior Minister Vano
Merabishvili testified at a parliamentary committee hearing that 14 policemen
had been killed and 227 injured. The bulk of the Interior Ministrys losses were
sustained during the storming of Tskhinvali on August 8. The Georgian media,
human rights organizations and opposition parties have not found any proof since
108 Anton Lavrov
the end of the war that the government has been trying to hide the true scale of
the losses, so the official figures can be trusted.
The high ratio of injuries to fatalities (12 to 1) is the result of the widespread
use of modern individual protective gear (body armor and helmets) in the
Georgian army. Most of the injuries were shrapnel wounds sustained as a result
of Russian artillery shelling, bombing raids and the use of cluster munitions.
Individual protective gear is very effective against shrapnel, substantially reducing
the likelihood of serious injury. The Georgian medics and evacuation teams
also did very well. There is a civilian clinic in Gori, in the direct vicinity of the
conflict zone; there is also a large and well equipped military hospital in the city.
Tbilisi itself is only 70 km away from Gori, and the capitals hospitals were able
to treat large numbers of casualties. Dozens of civilian ambulances and teams of
paramedics were mobilized to assist in evacuating the injured. They were able
quickly to bring the casualties from the battlefield directly to the city hospitals.
As a result, only about 2 per cent of the injured later died from their wounds.
The breakdown of MoD permanent losses is as follows:
Air Force 5 dead.
Navy 5 dead.
1
st
Infantry Brigade 7 dead.
2
nd
Infantry Brigade 34 dead and missing in action.
3
rd
4
th
Infantry Brigade 58 dead and missing in action.
5
th
Engineers Brigade 4 dead.
Special Operations Group 1 dead.
Independent Combined Tank Battalion - 26 dead and missing in action.
Independent Light Infantry Battalion 2 dead.
Army Logistics Service 1 dead.
National Guard (reserves) 9 dead.
Among the Army formations, the 4
th
Infantry Brigade, which bore the brunt
of the fighting during the battle for Tskhinvali on August 8-9, suffered the
heaviest losses. Its 42
nd
Light Infantry Battalion, which came under a Russian
air raid near Dubovaya Grove on the edge of the city, lost more than 100 people
(dead and injured) in that episode alone. The 41
st
Light Infantry Battalion,
which was involved in all the Georgian attempts at taking the city by storm,
reported similar numbers of casualties. Half of the losses in the 2
nd
Infantry
Brigade were sustained on August 11, when its engineering company was
retreating and bumped into Russian paratroopers rushing into Georgia. The
brigade also lost many men during the battles for the border villages and the
storming of Tskhinvali on August 9. Almost all the losses of the Independent
Combined Tank Battalion were sustained on August 8 during the battle in
Tskhinvali and its suburbs, where the battalion lost at least seven tanks. The
rest of the Georgian army units had very little direct contact with hostile forces,
and most of the soldiers they lost fell foul of the Russian shelling and air raids.
Some 39 Georgian servicemen were taken prisoner.
Georgia mobilized some 15,000 National Guard reserves to join the operation
against South Ossetia. But all of them had been released to go back home towards
the end of hostilities, after their assembly points were targeted by Russian air raids.
Only a small group from Gori took part in combat action, so there were very few
casualties during actual contact with the hostile forces. The National Guard took
its heaviest casualties during a Russian air strike against a military base in Senaki on
the night of August 8-9, in which seven reserves were killed.
The Georgian army group (excluding the Interior Ministry and the
reserves) that took part in the military action against South Ossetia lost up
to 15 per cent of its personnel (dead and injured). That is quite a lot for such
a short conflict. But not all the units were hit equally hard. The 2
nd
and 4
th

Infantry Brigades and the Independent Combined Tank Battalion came out of
the war much the worse for wear. But the 1
st
Infantry Brigade battalions, which
were urgently brought in from Iraq, and the 3
rd
Infantry Brigade were relatively
unscathed. The Artillery Brigade lost only a few men to injuries. Neither were
there any losses to speak of among the elite units such as the Special Operations
Group, the Military Police Battalion (which included many former Special
forces soldiers) and the Independent Light Infantry Battalion, the successor of
Georgias Marines. Nevertheless, even in the units that had suffered relatively
minor losses, the situation was compounded by fatigue; many individual soldiers
and small groups got separated from their retreating units and were left behind
in the conflict zone or simply deserted. Some 1,700 criminal prosecutions
were launched after the war against deserters.
Centralized command of the infantry brigades had been lost by the end
of combat operations. Brigade-level command and control system was also
in disarray. The commanders of the 41
st
and 53
rd
Light Infantry Battalions
had been killed. Commanders of several other battalions had been injured.
Battalion-level chain of command was, however, largely intact, although
some of the battalions got separated into individual companies, which acted
independently and had little communication with each other. Disruption of
the command and control system led to problems with coordination during
the retreat from the South Ossetian border, with some soldiers panicking and
leaving their weapons behind.
Georgian morale suffered a severe blow when in the absence of accurate
information, wild rumors started to spread that thousands of soldiers and
110 Anton Lavrov
reserves had been killed, the 4
th
Infantry Brigade completely destroyed, and
that huge numbers of Russian troops were pouring into Georgia to take Tbilisi
by storm. By nightfall of August 11, morale among the Georgian troops had
also been sapped by the increased intensity of Russian CAS air raids, especially
after the Mi-24 attack helicopters were brought to bear.
Armor
The armor category in which the Georgian forces suffered the heaviest losses
during combat operations was tanks. At least ten Georgian T-72s were destroyed
in and around Tskhinvali. Most belonged to the Independent Combined Tank
Battalion and the Combined Tank Battalion of the 4
th
Infantry Brigade. Six
of them were taken out by Ossetian forces, one by the Russian peacekeeping
battalion, and one by helicopters. The remaining two were abandoned by
the Georgians and then blown up by the Russian troops. Most of the losses
happened during the battle for Tskhinvali on August 8. Four more T-72 tanks
were taken as spoils of war in Tskhinvali and used in combat operations by the
Ossetian forces. An additional four were seized by Russian soldiers at the 2
nd

Infantry Brigades base in Senaki on August 11.
During the street battles in Tskhinvali, the Georgians also lost two BMP-2
infantry fighting vehicles to hostile fire. Another two BMP-2s of the 4
th
Infantry
Brigades Combined Tank Battalion were seized by the opposing forces. Late in
the afternoon on August 11, another BMP-2 of the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade burnt
down during Georgian retreat along the Gori-Tbilisi motorway. A Turkish-
made Cobra light armored vehicle belonging to the Interior Ministry was hit in
Tskhinvali on August 8 and then seized by the Ossetians, who also managed to
capture another two Cobras undamaged.
Artillery
Georgian artillery was positioned in the direct vicinity of the conflict zone.
Russia had complete superiority in the air, and Russian artillery specifically
targeted Georgian battery positions. Nevertheless, only two pieces of Georgian
self-propelled artillery have been confirmed as lost in combat. Pictures have been
released of the Georgian Artillery Brigades two 152 mm Dana self-propelled
gun-howitzers which were hit after having been being deployed for firing and
burnt down. Another six Dana units of the same brigade were abandoned late
in the afternoon of August 11 on the Gori-Tbilisi motorway after running out
of fuel or developing mechanical faults during the Georgian armys retreat.
However, on August 12 the Georgians managed to evacuate them to safety.
The Russian troops managed to capture only two Dana gun-howitzers: one
was found at a military base in Gori, the other abandoned at a firing position
just outside the city. Another 20 towed artillery pieces and 120 mm mortars
belonging to the infantry brigades were abandoned by the Georgians near the
village of Khetagurovo, in Gori and in the Kodori Gorge. All 20 were later
captured by Russian or Ossetian forces. The Georgian Artillery Brigade hid
five 203 mm 2S7 Pion self-propelled guns at a secluded spot near Gori as it
was retreating. Another such gun, which was non-operational, was abandoned
at the Artillery Brigades base in Gori. However, these artillery pieces were not
found by Russian troops until after the end of combat operations.
Aviation
The confirmed losses of the Georgian Air Force stand at three transport planes
and four helicopters. Out of that number, three An-2 light transport aircraft
were destroyed during a Russian air raid against the Marneuli airbase on
August 8. Two helicopters, an Mi-14BT and an Mi-24V, were destroyed when
the Senaki base was raided on August 11. Another Mi-24, which may have been
damaged in combat, crashed during an emergency landing. One more Mi-24V
was burnt down on the ground by Russian troops when they seized the Senaki
airfield on August 11. The Georgian air losses were relatively small because all
the Georgian combat aviation (the Su-25 attack aircraft) took to the air only
on August 8. After that, all the attack aircraft and trainers were spread around
airfields, hidden and camouflaged. All have survived the war and remain in
Georgian hands. Georgian Mi-24 attack helicopters flew only a few occasional
sorties and were grounded in the late afternoon on August 11.
Air Defense
On August 10-11, the Russian Air Force conducted an operation to disable the
Georgian air defense system. By the end of the hostilities, Russian anti-radar
missiles had destroyed a 36D6-M fixed military radar at the Shavshebi village
near Gori, and two civilian air traffic control radars at the Tbilisi airport and near
the Sea of Tbilisi, on Mount Mkhat. A bombing raid on August 8 also damaged
a civilian radar at Kopitnari airport. And on August 11, a reconnaissance team of
the Russian airborne troops destroyed a P-180U military radar near Poti. All these
radars, military and civilian alike, were part of an integrated Georgian airspace
monitoring system used by the military. By the time the hostilities ended, the
system had been seriously damaged. Some of its main radars had been disabled,
and some switched off to prevent them from being hit by anti-radar missiles.
It appears that none of Georgias mobile air defense systems was lost to
enemy fire. Most of them were withdrawn deep into Georgia. Two Buk-M1
SAM system launch vehicles, two transport-loaders and several 9M38M
missiles were abandoned at the military base in Senaki and seized by Russian
troops on August 11. Up to five Osa-AK/AKM SAM system vehicles were
seized near Gori.
112 Anton Lavrov
Navy and Coast Guard
The Georgian Navy and Coast Guard do not appear to have lost any ships by
the end of August 11. A civilian hydrographic survey boat sank in Poti on the
night of August 8-9 after the port was struck by two Russian Tochka-U short-
range tactical ballistic missiles. All the military ships and boats that were sound
enough to put to sea and had their crews on board were relocated from the Poti
naval base to the port of Batumi, where they were moored at the passenger port
and the Coast Guard docks. At the deserted Poti naval base, the Georgians left
only their two fast attack craft-missile, the Tbilisi and the Dioscuria, the Ayety
Coast Guard patrol ship, and three Coast Guard and Navy patrol boats (P-204,
P-205 and the Tskhaltubo). It is not clear why exactly they were abandoned. In
all likelihood, all of them were non-operational. The Russian forces did not
attempt to destroy the ships and boats that had been left in Poti or relocated
to Batumi. The Poti naval base sustained minor damage after being hit by two
Tochka-U missiles with cluster warheads on the night of August 8-9, but was
still entirely usable.
According to the Russian command, a Georgian military boat was sunk in a naval
clash on August 9. Attempts to confirm this by studying the post-war composition
of the Georgian fleet and records of any losses among the Navy personnel have
yielded no result. There is also uncertainty regarding Georgian media reports that
another survey boat was sunk in the open sea during the conflict.
Damage to military infrastructure
The main targets of Russian air raids outside the conflict zone during combat
operations were airfields and military bases. The landing strips of the airfields
in Marneuli, Senaki, Kopitnari, Shiraki, Vaziani and the Tbilisi aircraft
plant were all damaged during these air raids. The bombing missions were
conducted mostly by Su-24M frontline bombers using unguided bombs. More
than 60 such bombs were dropped on Kopitnari. Its landing strip was seriously
damaged in three separate places, which made the airfield completely unusable
for planes. More than 30 bombs failed to explode and had to be disarmed by
engineers before the airfield could be put back into operation in late September.
It is not clear if the bombs failed to go off due to malfunctions or whether their
detonators were deliberately configured in such a way as to make the use of the
airfield impossible for a long time after the actual air raid.
The base of the 2
nd
Infantry Brigade and the airbase in Senaki sustained
only minor damage during the bombing raids, although the Senaki runway was
damaged as well. Just as in Kopitnari, many of the bombs failed to explode -
more than 40 of them, weighing 250 kg or more, were left lying at the airbase
and around it. The Marneuli airbase was raided thrice on August 8. It sustained
damage to the runway, the parking lots and the barracks. The bases of the 1
st

Infantry Brigade in Gori, the 4
th
Infantry Brigade in Senaki and the Independent
Combined Tank Battalion in Gori were also raided. But only the tank base in
Gori suffered serious damage, which was bad enough to put it out of action. The
other raids were not massive or accurate enough, and many of the bombs failed
to detonate. As a result, the Georgian military infrastructure was not seriously
damaged by the air raids, which failed to destroy the weapons, equipment and
supplies stored at the military bases. By the time combat operations ended on
August 12, two Georgian bases the Army base in Senaki and the Interior
Ministry base in Variani had been seized by Russian troops along with all the
equipment and military supplies abandoned by the Georgians.
Conclusions
The losses of Georgian armor during the actual combat operations turned out to
be only moderate: up to 20 tanks and other armored vehicles in total. There are
several explanations for that. First, there was not a lot of close contact between
the Russian and Georgian troops. The Georgian army was largely passive from
August 10 onwards. And the Russian aviation more or less failed at the task of
destroying Georgian armor and artillery positioned just behind the front line
or traveling in convoys. Also, the Georgian army did not have that much armor
to begin with. Its core was made up of light infantry moving around in large
trucks and pick-ups. It lost less than 10 APCs, infantry fighting vehicles and
armored trucks, but the losses of non-armored vehicles were in the dozens.
Georgias heaviest losses during the actual combat operations were not in
equipment but in personnel. One of the greatest problems the Georgian army
had come to face by August 12 was low morale and disruption of the command
and control system. But for all these problems, which were made worse by a
certain degree of general disorganization, up to half of the Georgian ground
troops needed only a brief respite to restore their fighting ability. Very soon they
took up defensive positions at convenient natural strongholds around Tbilisi
and prepared themselves for organized resistance. As of August 12, despite
all the losses, the Georgian Army and Interior Ministry troops in eastern and
central Georgia still had about as many soldiers, tanks and artillery as the
Russian forces deployed in South Ossetia. The Russian forces had a substantial
superiority only in APCs and infantry fighting vehicles.
Considering all of the above, the Russian commands decision to continue
demilitarizing Georgia after August 12 appears entirely justified from a
military point of view. Russian troops briefly occupied large swathes of Georgian
territory and several towns (including Gori) to seize Georgian military facilities
and confiscate, remove or destroy large numbers of Georgian weapons. When
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the armed forces to end combat operations
at midday on August 12, he could have also ordered the troops to stay put rather
114 Anton Lavrov
than advance deeper into Georgia, seizing Gori, Senaki, Poti, etc. But that
would undoubtedly have enabled the Georgians to keep their pre-war arsenals
and military stocks almost in their entirety. The country would have emerged
from the war that it had itself started without any significant material losses.
The Georgians would have been able to keep their 203 mm 2S7 Pion self-
propelled guns, dozens of their upgraded T-72 tanks and BMP-1U vehicles
in Gori, and their largest military boats in Poti. The Georgian army would
still have been in possession of hundreds of anti-tank missiles and MANPAD
systems, and tens of thousands of artillery shells stored at the military bases
in Gori, Senaki and the Kodori Gorge. Had the Russian troops delayed their
move into Gori by so much as 24 hours, a symbolic Georgian force would
immediately have returned to the military bases in the city. Having just signed
a truce, Russia would not have broken it just to seize those bases. As early as
August 12 or the day after, the Georgians were already able to evacuate the six
Dana self-propelled gun-howitzers they had abandoned right outside Gori. And
by August 13-14, Georgian army units and police had already returned to the
front line in some areas; some of them even stationed themselves immediately
next to the Russian checkpoints.
Post-war Deployment of Russian Forces
in Abkhazia and South Ossetia
Anton Lavrov
After the end of hostilities in the Five Day War in August 2008, even before
the Russian troops were pulled out of Georgian territory, Russia announced
the recognition of the two Georgian separatist provinces, Abkhazia and South
Ossetia, as independent states. Since the Georgian leadership had not abandoned
its intention to bring the two breakaway regions back into the fold using
force if necessary the only way to guarantee the existence of the two newly
recognized republics was to station Russian troops on their territory. Under the
agreements they have signed with Moscow, Russia has been given a free 99-year
lease of several tracts of land for its new military bases in South Ossetia, and a
49-year lease in Abkhazia.
Initially, the number of troops to be permanently stationed at each of the new
Russian bases was set at 3,800. But the new situation following the recognition
of the two republics has allowed Russia a lot of freedom of maneuver in this
regard it can for example send additional troops to each of the two republics if
it perceives an increased threat of a Georgian attack. That freedom is especially
important in the case of South Ossetia, where troop movement is restricted
by poor roads and the bottleneck of the Roki tunnel. Apart from the Russian
116 Anton Lavrov
Army units, the FSBs Border Guard Troops will have 1,000 to 1,500 people in
each of the two republics.
In the absence of any external controls, the real numbers of Russian troops
in the two republics were higher than initially stated in the first few months
after the war. Apart from the units of the newly formed 4
th
and 7
th
Military
Bases of the Russian Army, Russia has sent additional engineer troops, air
force and air defense units, as well as additional artillery, including the 944
th

Guard Self-propelled Artillery Regiment of the 20
th
Motorized Rifle Division
(permanent base in Volgograd) and several 9P140 Uragan 220mm MLR
systems. In addition, various army special task force units are now stationed in
Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Russian military bases in Abkhazia
In the event of a Georgian attack, the Russian and Abkhaz troops in Abkhazia
will have to defend a fairly long 60km stretch of the land border, which follows
the course of the small river Inguri. The terrain here is flat, and geographically
this stretch is quite easy to defend. In addition, the republics capital, most of
its largest towns and the key military bases are situated well away from the
border, so they are not facing a threat of a surprise Georgian shelling or land
invasion. The Kodori Gorge stretch of the border with Georgia can be held
by a relatively small force, because the terrain there makes the use of heavy
equipment impractical. The rest of the Abkhaz-Georgian border lies along
inaccessible mountainous terrain where Georgia will not be able to deploy any
large forces or heavy armor, which makes defending this stretch from a large-
scale invasion all the more easy.
After the Five Day War, the 131
st
Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade of the
58
th
Army became the core of the new Russian 7
th
Military Base in Abkhazia. The
brigade was previously stationed in Maykop. It had earned itself a sad reputation
after sustaining heavy casualties in the storming of Grozny in January 1995, during
the First Chechen War. Units of the 131
st
Brigade had been on peacekeeping duty
in Abkhazia for several years even before the conflict with Georgia. But after the
Five Day War the entire brigade was moved into the republic and stationed there
permanently. The redeployment began as early as mid-August 2008, and had
been largely completed by late September 2008. The old Soviet military airfield
at Bombora, near the town of Gudauta, was chosen as the site of the base. On
November 17, 2008, the Abkhaz parliament allocated 150 hectares (370 acres) of
land there for the new Russian military base.
Tents, rows of equipment and warehouses sprang up right beside the
runway. Gudauta is situated at a significant distance (more than 100 km) from
the border with Georgia along the Inguri river. This is why in the first few
months after the war, one of the battalions of that base held reinforced defensive
117 Post-war Deployment of Russian Forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia
positions in the direct vicinity of the border in Abkhazias Gal District. Apart
from the resources of the Russian base itself, two separate Russian engineer
battalions and a separate engineer and positioning company were used to build
the defenses there but those units were pulled out of Abkhazia in 2009.
Another company of the brigade was on constant duty in Kodori Gorge.
By late February 2009, the tank battalion of the 131
st
Independent
Motorized Rifle Brigade, which was previously equipped with the T-72B main
battle tanks, had been completely rearmed with the latest T-90As of the 2008
model. And since the numerical strength of the battalion has also changed, the
number of its tanks now stands at 41. Such a large number of modern tanks
makes the Russian brigade more than a match for Georgias upgraded T-72s,
even though the Georgians have a numerical advantage. The only remaining
problem is giving the personnel full training in the operation and maintenance
of the new equipment. Starting from April 2009, the new tanks have become a
large part of the brigades training program.
The Russian base in Abkhazia was one of the first in the Russian Army to
be equipped with tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Its reconnaissance
battalion now has the Strekoza systems, which have a range of up to 15 km. This
new compact Russian system can shoot high-quality color video and transmit
it in real time. The new Dozor armored reconnaissance vehicles (based on the
KamAZ-43269 Vystrel armored vehicles) are used to move the system around,
but the UAVs can actually fit into a backpack.
Apart from tanks, the base has more than 150 BTR-80 armored personnel
carriers. These should eventually be replaced with the BTR-80A version, which
has better firepower. The base also has two battalions of the 2S3 Akatsiya self-
propelled 152mm howitzer, one battalion of the BM-21 Grad 122 mm MLR
systems, Osa-AKM (SA-8B), ZSU-23-4 Shilka and 2S6M Tunguska (SA-19)
air defense systems, etc.
In the fall of 2008, Russia began integrating the Abkhaz territory into is
own air defense system. In November 2008, Russia sent to Abkhazia several
S-300PS (SA-10B) SAM systems of one of the air defense missile regiments
in Moscow region. It has also deployed radar units equipped with the latest
Fundament automation sets. Two S-300PS battalions have been stationed near
the town of Gudauta and the village of Agudzery. They provide reliable air
defense for Abkhazia and the Russian bases on its territory. They give Russia
full control of the skies not just over Abkhazia, but also over large swathes of
western Georgia. Russia also still has Tochka-U (SS-21) short-range ballistic
missiles in Abkhazia.
Immediately after recognizing the independence of Abkhazia, Russia
announced plans to build a naval base there. The port Russia has chosen for
that purpose is Ochamchira, which used to host a brigade of Coast Guard and
118 Anton Lavrov
training ships of the Soviet Navy. This small port can be used by ships of up
to 85 meters in length. The navigation channel used to be 12 meters deep, but
it has been allowed to silt up over the years, and its actual depth now is only
5 meters. The channel and the harbor will need to be dredged, a few sunken
hulks will have to be lifted and some of the land infrastructure will have to be
restored. But once that is done, the port will be quite usable as a permanent base
for three to five small-size ships of the Russian Black Sea fleet, such as missile
corvettes and ASW corvettes of the Navy, and up to 10 Coast Guard patrol
boats of the FSB Border Guard Service. Such a force could reliably protect the
Abkhaz coast. In August 2009, Russia began dredging the Ochamchira port,
with an expected completion date in 2010.
In May 2009, the Russian Defense Ministry said that troop numbers at the
Russian military base in Abkhazia could be reduced by redeploying up to half
of them to the existing permanent bases in Russia. A ministry representative
cited failure to resolve some of the practical problems of stationing Russian
troops in Gudauta. The soldiers have been living in tents all this time. And
although the climate there is fairly mild, high humidity, sea winds and frequent
rain make living in tents quite uncomfortable during the cold season. In the
winter of 2008/2009, the problem was compounded by unreliable supplies of
firewood and electricity blackouts. Although contracts had been signed with
Abkhaz companies for regular deliveries of firewood, the soldiers were forced to
cut down trees around the base to stay warm. It was not until August 2009 that
Russia began assembling prefabricated living quarters at the compound. The
possibility of reducing troop numbers was considered, then rejected. Soldiers
had to spend the winter of 2009/2010 living in tents, as before.
Russian military bases in South Ossetia
South Ossetia is harder to defend then Abkhazia. Its capital Tskhinvali, the
republics largest town, is within the range of not only Georgian artillery and
mortars, but even small arms fire. Leningori District of South Ossetia is isolated,
and linked to the main part of the territory by just one narrow mountain road.
An average drive to Leningori takes 4-6 hours. The road also becomes nearly
impassable in winter and during heavy rain. In June 2009, a section of the road
collapsed after heavy rains, cutting off all traffic for several days. The Russian
troops in the district had to rely on helicopters for all their supplies.
South Ossetia itself is linked to Russia by just one hard-surface road with
a single lane in each direction. The road passes through the Roki tunnel,
which acts as a bottleneck. During the cold season, the road is often blocked
by avalanches for a day or more. That makes bringing in reinforcements from
Russia difficult. Meanwhile, there are several good roads linking South Ossetia
to Georgia. The Georgians can therefore bring their troops in quickly and
easily from their nearby bases which is exactly what happened during the Five
Day War.
That is why Russia, in accordance with the commitments it has undertaken,
is forced to keep a contingent of troops in South Ossetia that can hold off
for a time any possible Georgian aggression on its own, until the arrival of
reinforcements and/or other measures to stop the aggression. Immediately after
the end of the war, a decision was made to deploy the Russian 4
th
Military Base
in the republic. The core of the new base is the 693
rd
Rifle Brigade, which was formed from the 693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment of
the 19
th
Motorized Rifle Division previously stationed near Vladikavkaz. The
regiment was merged with another battalion of the disbanded 135
th
Motorized
Rifle Regiment of the same division. It was also given one MLRS battalion, and
the new brigades manpower has been brought up to the required numbers.
The base now has 41 T-72B(M) tanks, over 150 BMP-2 armored infantry
fighting vehicles, two 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled 152mm howitzer battalions,
one BM-21 Grad 122 MLRS battalion, Buk-M1 (SA-11) and 2S6M Tunguska air
defense systems, and other weapons. Most of its equipment has been repaired and
upgraded. Just as the Russian base in Abkhazia, the 4
th
Base in South Ossetia has
been given Strekoza UAVs, which are now being used to monitor the border.
Three small military compounds were chosen as the main sites for the 4
th
Base.
Their construction had started even before the war they were supposed to host
the Russian and North Ossetian peacekeeping forces. The first site, Compound
No 47/1, is situated on the northwestern outskirts of Tskhinvali. By the time the
war began, the compound was almost complete, but not yet connected to water
or electricity, and the buildings lacked interior finish. During the war, it stood
empty and suffered very little damage. It wasnt targeted by either side, though a
few stray Georgian shells and mortars landed on its territory.
Work on the site resumed after the war, and proceeded so briskly that
much of the compound including the barracks, apartment blocks and support
facilities, hangars for some of the equipment and the helipad was finished
and handed over to the new owners by February 2009. Work continued at
the base throughout 2009 so that it could meet all the new requirements.
More construction is scheduled for 2010. But the compound has one serious
disadvantage: it is located just a two miles from the Georgian border, so in the
event of new hostilities, the Russian personnel and equipment stationed there
may come under sudden massive shelling from deep within Georgia.
The second site is located less than a mile west of Djava, near Ugardanta
village. Apart from Compound No 47/2, it hosts the Russian contingents
main missile, artillery and engineering warehouses. A hard-surface heliport big
enough for 10-15 helicopters was built close by immediately after war. The
heliport has a store of fuel and ammunition, which makes it possible for Russia
120 Anton Lavrov
to transfer additional helicopters quickly to South Ossetia in case of an attack,
and put them to good use in combat operations. That operational capability
would have come very handy in the first few days of the 2008 war.
A common problem of the new Russian military compounds in South Ossetia
was their lack of capacity they were designed to house a limited peacekeeping
contingent, not an entire motorized rifle brigade. The lack of space in the barracks
had to be addressed by bringing in bunk beds. Neither were the peacekeepers
supposed to have nearly as much equipment as the brigade has brought with it,
so there were not enough hangars. The problem has been resolved by stationing
about half of the personnel of the 4
th
Military Base in Vladikavkaz, with rotations
every six months. All the equipment remains in South Ossetia, in a refurbished
former industrial facility on the edge of the military compound in Tskhinvali and
at the Djava base.
Construction work at the South Ossetian bases continued throughout 2009
to increase their capacity. It has been announced that starting from February 1,
2010, personnel temporarily stationed in Vladikavkaz has been brought back
to South Ossetia. All personnel will now be permanently stationed at the
two military compounds in Tskhinval and Djava. Work continues at both
compounds to improve the existing facilities and build new ones.
Meanwhile, the small groups of Russian forces in the remote Leningori,
Znaur and Djava districts have been housed in tents for more than a year now,
with minimal comforts, sometimes experiencing shortages of basic supplies.
One indication of the difficult living conditions in those garrisons is that there
have been several cases of desertion of Russian soldiers to Georgia. Quick-
assembly prefabricated living quarters are now being set up to address the
problem to some degree.
The 4
th
Military Base also has large numbers of troops stationed in
Leningori District. Because of its isolated location and vulnerability, Russia
has been forced to station an augmented motorized rifle company there, in the
village of Kancheviti. The company is armed with tanks, artillery, multiple
launch rocket systems and air defense systems. Additional reinforcements are
brought in when the ongoing tensions threaten to escalate.
Developing the transport infrastructure of the republics
Defending South Ossetia is going to be very difficult without reliable transport
communications with Russia. That is why improving the transport infrastructure
of the republic has become a key priority. The goal here is to make sure that
reinforcements from Russia can be brought in quickly as and when they are
needed, and that the Russian forces stationed throughout the republic are well
supplied at all times. It has been decided that the Trans-Caucasus Motorway,
which is often impassable during winter, should be made operational all year
round. Under a new program, in the next few years three new tunnels will be built
along the route, six kilometers of anti-avalanche galleries, and several mudflow
gaps. Several bridges will be reinforced. Work has also begun to refurbish the
strategically important Roki tunnel, which connects the republic with Russia.
The program also includes the completion of a new gravel-surfaced mountain
road linking Leningori District to the rest of South Ossetia work on it had begun
even before the war. The surface of the roads damaged by troop movements during
the war has now been restored. Hard surface has been laid all along the previously
unsurfaced Zarskaya detour road. Engineers are also looking for a suitable site in
South Ossetia to build an airfield that could receive military transports.
The existing transport communications between Russia and Abkhazia are
far more reliable. Apart from a motorway, there is a railway branch and two large
airfields that can receive heavy transports, including An-124 and An-22 aircraft.
The Abkhaz ports on the Black Sea can be used to bring in troops and supplies.
Russia has signed an agreement with the Republic of Abkhazia under which
the local railways and the Sukhumi airport will be run by Russian operators for
the next 10 years. The Russian Railways Company, which will run the Abkhaz
railways, has announced a big repairs program that includes extensive track repairs
and a complete restoration of the track electrification system. That will increase
the capacity of Abkhaz railways and speed up troop movement.
The Sukhumi Airport was used in August 2008 to bring in Russian
paratroopers and military supplies. The plan now is that if needed, it will also
be used to host a temporary or permanent Russian air group that will include
fighters, fighter-bombers and helicopters. The transfer of the airport to Russian
control will allow its capacity to be increased, and the necessary conditions
(including stores) created for the Russian Air Force to use it as a base. The
Gudauta airfield is not suitable as an air base because it now hosts key facilities
of the 7
th
Military Base. The helicopters of the 55
th
Independent Helicopter
Regiment (Korenovsk), which were temporarily based there to support the
Russian ground operations, were taken to their permanent base in 2009. But
they can be brought back to Gudauta if the need arises.
Reinforcing the borders
Russia has announced a medium-term goal of making the Russian border
with Abkhazia and South Ossetia as transparent as the borders between the
EU nations are. But to make sure that these newly recognized republics do
not become a gap in Russias defenses, their own borders with Georgia will
inevitably have to be upgraded into proper state borders and equipped to
Russian standards.
In January 2009, Russia began unilateral demarcation and delimitation of
the South Ossetian and Abkhaz borders with Georgia. For South Ossetia, it is
122 Anton Lavrov
using the line of the administrative border defined in documents dating to 1921.
Georgia says this is illegal, and refuses to recognize these borders. Nevertheless,
on April 30, 2009, Russia signed agreements with the Republic of Abkhazia and
the Republic of South Ossetia on joint efforts to guard and defend their borders.
Under the terms of the agreements, Border Troops of Russias FSB service will
be permanently stationed along the Abkhaz and South Ossetian border with
Georgia to ensure the two republics territorial integrity. Russian border troop
numbers will not be included in the tally of Russian Defense Ministry forces.
The Russian border guards will help train Abkhazias and South Ossetias own
border troops, and the arrangement will remain in place until those local troops
can take over. But there are no deadlines for Russian border troops withdrawal,
so potentially they can stay there indefinitely.
Two new departments have been set up in the Border Guard Service under
the Russian FSB one for the Republic of Abkhazia, the other for the Republic
of South Ossetia. The Abkhazia department will be in charge of a 160 km
stretch of land border and about 200 km of sea border. For this purpose, 20
frontier posts and a Coast Guard unit will be created in the new republic, with
1,500 border guards. Another 20 or so frontier posts will be set up in South
Ossetia, with over 1,000 border guards.
On May 1, 2009, immediately after the agreements were signed, Russia
began the deployment of its border guards along the new republics frontier
with Georgia. The first stage of the deployment in Abkhazia was completed
by the end of May, and in South Ossetia by the middle of June. At present, the
border guards are stationed in temporary outposts. But it is expected that by the
end of 2011, those will be replaced by permanent outposts of the same type that
have been built in large numbers in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan and other
regions in the south of Russia. These outposts are autonomous; they provide
comfortable living conditions for the personnel even on the most isolated
stretches of the border, and enable remote monitoring of the frontier with the
help of technology. The most isolated outposts will be supplied with the help of
a newly built network of helipads.
In South Ossetia, apart from Tskhinvali itself, there will be Russian border
guard stations in Artsevi, Akhmadzhi, Balaani, Balta, Vakhtana, Velit, Grom,
Djava, Disev, Dmenis, Edis, Znaur, Kvaysa, Largvis, Leningor, Muguti, Or-
chasan, Sinagur and Tsinagar. That means that the border patrols will cover
not just the areas which are easy to reach from Georgia, but also the remote
mountainous stretches along the entire perimeter of the republics border.
It became obvious in 2009 that Abkhazias maritime borders also need to be
guarded, and shipping in this area of the Black Sea needs to be reliably protected.
Commercial shipping between Abkhazia and Turkey has been on the rise since
the war ended. Georgia believes that this is against the law, and that all ships
calling at the Abkhaz ports without Georgian vetting are smugglers. Tbilisi has
been trying to put an end to all such trade. In 2009, the Georgian Coast Guard
seized more than 20 civilian ships heading to or from Abkhazia. The ships were
escorted to Georgian ports, where in some cases their owners were ordered to pay
large fines. In the worst such cases, the cargo or even the ships themselves were
confiscated, and crew members sentenced to prison terms.
In order the forestall Georgian attempts to impose a maritime blockade on
Abkhazia, Russia has decided to form a squadron of up to 10 patrol ships and
boats, which will be stationed in the port of Ochamchira. Among them will
be large ships of the Russian Coast Guard as well as modern high-speed boats.
The formation of the squadron began in September 2009, when the Novoros-
siysk, a Project 12412 (Pauk class) patrol ship, was sent to Abkhazia. The first
two Project 12150 (Mangust class) and Project 12200 (Sobol class) high-speed
small patrol boats arrived in Ochamchira on December 12, 2009. In the spring
of 2010 they were joined by two more such boats, both newly built. The rest
of the ships and boats will follow by the end of 2010, and the upgrade of the
Ochamchira base to host the squadron will be completed by 2012.
Since the beginning of Russian patrols of the Abkhaz coast, attempts by the
Georgian Coast Guard to seize civilian ships have ceased. Neither have there
been any violations of the Abkhaz maritime borders.
Large Russian coast guard patrol ships are very well equipped in terms of
their firepower. They carry AK-176M 76 mm artillery and AK-630 30 mm
rapid-fire guns, as well as fairly advanced fire control systems. That gives them
complete superiority over any Georgian patrol boats, whose most powerful
weapon is an aged 37 mm cannon. As for the Russian high-speed boats, their
main objective is to repel any raids by Georgias new Turkish-built Coast Guard
boats, which are fast but lightly armed. They act as a rapid response instrument
whenever there is a threat to commercial shipping in the area. In addition to
stationing its ships in Abkhazia, the Russian Coast Guard is also working to set
up an integrated radar monitoring system in the Abkhaz territorial waters and
the adjacent marine space.
Apart from serving the main purpose of guarding the border, the stationing
of Russian border troops in the two republics has great military significance.
The Russian border guards deployed there are well equipped and well trained
professional soldiers. They are armed with modern small arms, mortars, light
armored vehicles, attack helicopters and modern surveillance technology,
including UAVs, thermal imagers and radars. The overall number of Russian
border guards stationed in Abkhazia and South Ossetia will eventually reach
2,500 people. Once they are fully deployed, they will keep Georgian border
areas under surveillance, intercept Georgian spies and saboteurs, and in the
event of a new Georgian attack on the two newly independent republics they
124 Anton Lavrov
will serve as the first line of defense, preventing a rapid advance of Georgian
troops into Abkhaz and South Ossetian territory.
Combat training
The Russian troops sent to Abkhazia and South Ossetia after the Five Day War
had limited opportunities for combat training. During the first few months
they had to put most of their energies into settling in at their new bases, which
left them very little time for training. In Abkhazia, where a large peacekeeping
force had been stationed even before the war, and where much of the Soviet-
built infrastructure remains intact, that initial stage was easier and quicker. But
in South Ossetia, it dragged on until early spring of 2009.
Once the initial problems faced by the large new force at its new bases were
sorted, the troops faced a new difficulty: there were no firing ranges around
which they could use for combat training. And whereas shooting ranges were
quickly set up for small arms training, finding a suitable place for tank and
artillery fire proved a much more formidable task. It took the local authorities
quite a while to allocate tracts of land for these purposes. The small size of the
firing ranges and of the republics themselves made it difficult to conduct a
full-scale exercise involving more than one company, especially if live shooting
was involved. Some types of exercises involving tanks, artillery and air defense
systems required the personnel and equipment to be brought to the firing
ranges of the North Caucasus Military District in Russia itself, which limited
the combat effectiveness of the Russian troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The situation was especially difficult in South Ossetia. Tanks had to be brought
all the way to the Tarskoye firing range in North Ossetia for live firing. The
problem had been resolved only by late 2009. Both of the Russian bases can
now hold company and battalion-level exercises with live firing on the territory
of the two new republics.
In late June early July 2009, the Russian armed forces held their traditional
annual operational and strategic exercise Caucasus 2009 on the training ranges
of the North Caucasus Military District. The Russian troops deployed in the
newly recognized republics also took part; one of the scenarios of the exercise was
using the forces of the North Caucasus Military District to help those troops.
But although military commanders said they would make use of the experience
of the previous years war, and of the new brigade structure of command, the
scenario of Caucasus 2009 was not much different from Caucasus 2008. The
Russian forces and equipment that took part were about the same as in the
previous years. The exercise itself was held simultaneously on several far-flung
ranges, which meant that coordination between the brigades and other units
involved in it was not part of the practical scenario. Large-scale redeployment
of troops of the North Caucasus Military District and operations to bring large
reinforcements to the district from other parts of Russia were not included in
the practical part of the training event. Neither did the scenario include actual
deployment of those troops in the two newly recognized republics themselves
to bolster Russian troop numbers there.
The Russian forces in Abkhazia and South Ossetia took only a limited part
in Caucasus 2009 they participated mainly in the command staff exercises.
Part of the reason for that was Russias unwillingness to take large troop
numbers too far away from the border with Georgia. The armed forces of the
two newly independent republics were not involved in the exercise, and neither
was all the new Russian equipment in the region, not even those armaments
that the troops here received the previous year not in large numbers anyway.
That suggests that troops had not yet been adequately trained in the use of the
new weapons by the time the exercise was held.
The conscript soldiers who took part in the war in August 2008 and
gained some combat experience have all been demobilized by now. Many of
the experienced professional soldiers have also left the army, largely because
the Russian Defense Ministry has failed to honor its initial promises regarding
bonuses for service in the two republics, and the difficult living conditions at
the Russian military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Also, as part of
the ongoing military reform, the ministry has decided to limit the proportion
of professional soldiers in the overall manpower of the bases. As a result, the
proportion of soldiers serving under contract at the 7
th
Military Base in Abkhazia
has fallen to 20 per cent (the rest being conscripts). The situation at the South
Ossetia base is similar, although the proportion of professional soldiers there is
a bit higher. As of the spring of 2010, only a few dozen soldiers who took part
in the 2008 war with Georgia are still serving there. As a result of numerous
structural reorganizations, most of the middle and high-ranking commanding
officers who were involved in the war have also been replaced.
By way of compensation, the intensity of combat training has been ramped
up at the two bases started from the second half of 2009. The 7
th
Military
Base has held four battalion-level exercises in less than a year. There are also
regular company and platoon-level training events, both in Abkhazia and
South Ossetia. The emphasis during the exercises is on repelling an assault
by the Georgian regular army. Inspections held by the Defense Ministry
commissions have concluded that the Russian troops in the two republics meet
all the combat readiness standards. Both of the brigades can deploy within an
hour of receiving their orders.
It is therefore safe to say that a certain increase in the fighting ability of the
Russian troops stationed in the two republics has been achieved since the end of
the war. That is despite the fact that most of the soldiers who had obtained real
combat experience during the war with Georgia (which was admittedly very
126 Anton Lavrov
brief ) have now left the army. The Russian troops are now better trained than
those which took part in the Five Day War.
Significance of the two bases
The overall number of troops stationed at the Russian bases in Abkhazia and
South Ossetia is not much higher than the size of the Russian peacekeeping
forces there before the Five Day War. Only in South Ossetia has there been a
notable increase, from 1,000 soldiers (including the North Ossetian peacekeeper
battalion) to 3,500. As for Abkhazia, Russia had a 3,000-strong peacekeeping
force there even before the war, including a large part of the 131
st
Motorized
Rifle Brigades strength.
Nevertheless, there has been a radical increase over the past two years in
the fighting ability of the Russian forces stationed in the two republics. That
increase has resulted from the arrival of large numbers of heavy weapons, which
the Russian troops were not allowed to have under their peacekeeping mandate.
Dozens of Russian tanks (including the latest T-90As) and heavy self-propelled
artillery now stationed in Abkhazia and South Ossetia leave the Georgian army
no chances of crushing the Russian garrisons and seizing large territories before
Russia can send reinforcements.
By themselves, the two Russian military bases will not be able to repel
a large-scale offensive of the much lager Georgian army, which can also be
strengthened by the reserves. But they can hold their ground long enough for
the reinforcements to arrive from Russia, using the much improved transport
infrastructure, and launch a counteroffensive. The situation for Georgia is
compounded by the fact that this time around it will not be able to use almost
all available strength against just one of the two republics, as it did during the
Five Day War. It will inevitably have to commit a substantial part of its forces
to deal with the Russian base in the other republic.
Russias decision to station its forces in the two newly independent states has
reduced the risk of small conflicts. The Georgian government is well aware that
even a limited military operation against Abkhazia or South Ossetia can trigger a
very rapid and decisive response by the Russian troops stationed there. These troops
will no longer be constrained by their peacekeeping remit, or limit themselves to
just forcing Georgia to peace. In the worst-case scenario, if the clashes degenerate
into a new large conflict between Russia and Georgia, the troops at the Russian
bases can always count on reinforcements being rushed in from Russia.
The base in South Ossetia, which is by far the more vulnerable of the two,
can count on reinforcements from North Ossetia and the neighboring Russian
regions. As part of the military reform, the former 19
th
stationed in Vladikavkaz has been transformed into the 19
th
Independent
Motorized Rifle Brigade, which maintains permanent combat readiness. It is
now taking deliveries of new weapons, including T-90A main battle tanks and
BMP-3 armored infantry fighting vehicles. In the event of a new conflict, this
brigade will be the first of the Russian reserve forces to be brought into South
Ossetia. That will require less than 24 hours.
Other troops of the North Caucasus Military District which can be used
in South Ossetia are also receiving new and upgraded equipment. The obsolete
T-62 tanks of the 17
th
and 18
th
Independent Motorized Rifle Brigades have
been replaced with the T-72Bs. The two successor brigades of the former
42
nd
Motorized Rifle Division, both stationed in Chechnya, are also receiving
the new upgraded MT-LB 6MB multipurpose tracked armored vehicles with
improved firepower. The 20
th
Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade stationed
in Volgograd, the successor of the former 20
th
Motorized Rifle Division, has also
been rearmed with the BMP-3 vehicles and T-90A tanks. The 6971
st
Airbase in
Budennovsk (created through the merger of the former 368
th
Attack Aviation
Regiment and the 487
th
Independent Helicopter Regiment) has recently received
another batch of the upgraded Su-25SM attack aircraft and 10 new Mi-28N
attack helicopters. It has been announced that an order has been placed for a
2010 delivery of 22 Mi-8AMTSh assault landing and attack helicopters to the
former 55
th
Independent Helicopter Regiment in Korenovsk, which is now part
of the 6970
th
Airbase in Krymsk. The regiment was also due to receive several
new Ka-52A attack helicopters as soon as they entered mass production. As
part of a solution to problems with reconnaissance during the Five Day War,
the new experimental 100
th
Reconnaissance Brigade is now being formed in
Mozdok. It will be equipped with Israeli-made IAI Searcher II medium-size
UAVs and other technical reconnaissance equipment.
The situation on the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has become
much quieter since the Russian troops were brought in. Cross-border exchanges
of fire between Georgia and the two new republics it is refusing to recognize
have become much less frequent and violent. Not a single civilian has been
killed in such exchanges since the end of the war. The Georgian rhetoric against
Abkhazia and South Ossetia has also become much less shrill. The government
in Tbilisi now prefers not to talk about returning its two breakaway republics
by force, or to name any specific time frame for bringing them back into the
fold. Nevertheless, Georgia has not abandoned plans for regaining its lost
territories. The threat of another armed conflict with Russia therefore still
remains unabated.
128
Russian
and Allied Losses
Anton Lavrov
Casualties in the Russian Armed Forces
Less than a month after the end of combat operations, the Georgian Defense
Ministry published an official list of the Georgian servicemen and reserves
killed or missing in action.
1

That list is fairly detailed. Apart from the names of the casualties, it
also states their rank and regiment. The list was later amended and revised
on a regular basis as tests were conducted on unidentified bodies and as new
information was becoming available about those missing. Careful study of the
list suggests that it is complete and accurate.
In total contrast, the Russian MoD still has not published any such list.
It has released the overall figures of the Russian losses, but gave no further
details. The South Ossetian and the Abkhaz authorities have not been any more
forthcoming. In fact, there has not been any official information regarding
even approximate figures of the losses among the South Ossetian militia or the
volunteers who had come to the conflict zone from Russia.
The absence of an official MoD list of the Russian losses has been compounded
by conflicting information given by various officials. The number of Russian
130 Anton Lavrov
soldiers killed during the war has been put at anywhere between 48 and 74 people.
At present, 67 is believed to be the final official figure. Its source is a special inquiry
committee of the Russian Prosecutor-Generals office.
2
It includes all those who
died during combat operations on August 8-12 and during the post-war period,
before the beginning of the Russian troop pullout. Unfortunately, the committee
has released the overall figure but not the actual names of those killed.
By collecting post-war reports about the Russian servicemen who died
during the war, researchers have compiled an unofficial list of 65 names.
3
The
information came from Russian national and local media sources, recollections of
the eyewitnesses, official documents made available since the end of the war, and
other sources. The list identifies 65 Russian servicemen who died in the period of
August 1-31, 2008 in the South Ossetian and Abkhaz theaters of operations. After
careful study of all the available sources, researchers have been able to establish
not just the names of those killed but also the circumstances of their deaths,
in most cases. That information has been used to conduct detailed analysis of
permanent Russian losses during the conflict.
The following is the chronological breakdown of the Russian losses:
Period Russian servicemen killed
August 1-7 0
August 8 15
August 9 17
August 10 7
August 11 14
August 12 2
August 13-31 7
Unknown 3
Total 65
During the first day of the war, on August 8, most of the Russian servicemen
killed were the peacekeepers at the Southern (Upper) Compound, which
came under Georgian attack in the very first hours of the conflict. A total of
14 Russian peacekeepers died there, including 10 soldiers of the 2
nd
Battalion
of the 19
th
th
Motorized Rifle Regiment. The
remaining four were soldiers of the army Spetsnaz attached to the battalion
before the war. Three of them were from the 22
nd
Independent Special Force
Brigade, and one from the 10
th
Independent Special Force Brigade. Contrary
to numerous Georgian reports, the small vanguard Russian force that entered
South Ossetia on August 8 did not in fact come under heavy artillery fire.
Neither did it take part in any fighting on that day, apart from a few medium
and long distance exchanges of fire. As a result, only one member of that
force died on August 8. He was a serviceman of the 135
th
Motorized Rifle
Regiments 1
st
Battalion.
The key event of the second day of the war on August 9 was the Russian
forces first attempt at taking Tskhinvali. Eleven Russian servicemen were
killed when a Russian convoy moving towards the city came under heavy
shelling, and during the subsequent street battles in Tskhinvali. Also, five
Russian military pilots were killed that day when four Russian aircraft were
shot down.
The third day of the war, August 10, was relatively quiet, without any heavy
battles. But three servicemen of the 42
nd
st
Mo-
torized Rifle Regiment were killed in a single episode when Russian troops
came under Georgian artillery fire. Another three died in several road traf-
fic accidents as large numbers of Russian troops were moving along a narrow
mountain road.
On August 11, the Russian forces began a counteroffensive, advancing deep
into Georgian territory. There were several small clashes with Georgian troops.
Nevertheless, the losses that day were much heavier than the day before. Several
more soldiers died in road accidents. Five servicemen died from non-combat
causes when active combat operations were already over; another two died in
hospital from their injuries.
Of the 67 casualties recognized by the Russian MoD, many died from caus-
es other than hostile fire. The inquiry committee of the Russian Prosecutor-
Generals office has established that only 48 Russian servicemen were killed
as a result of hostile action. The rest died in accidents involving mishandled
firearms, friendly fire incidents and road accidents.
The number of lives claimed by road accidents was especially high. Troops
were rushing into the conflict zone along narrow mountain roads, often at
night, which contributed to the sorry statistics. To illustrate, out of the 30 in-
jured servicemen of the 429
th
Motorized Rifle Regiment, only two cases could
132 Anton Lavrov
be attributed to hostile fire. The rest received their injuries, including broken
limbs, head injuries and concussions, on the road. Out of the nine soldiers of
the 292
nd
Combined Artillery Regiment who were injured, eight were hurt in
a single road accident. Meanwhile, the units that had been well prepared for
mountainous terrain, such as the 70
th
, 71
st
, 135
th
and 693
rd
Motorized Rifle
Regiments, did not suffer any serious non-combat losses.
Sixteen of the Russian servicemen killed during the war were officers, two
were warrant officers, and the remaining 44 sergeants and privates. Of the eight
senior officers killed during the conflict, five (a colonel, a lieutenant colonel
and three majors) served in the Air Force. All of them died when their planes
were downed.
Rank Number killed
Colonel 1
Lieutenant Colonel 1
Major 6
Lieutenant 8
Warrant Officer 2
Sergeants 17
Lance Corporal 1
Private 26
Unknown 3
The breakdown of the losses by regiment is as follows:
Regiment Servicemen killed
135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiment 21
71
st
693
rd
503
rd
108
th
Airborne Assault Regiment 4
10
th
Independent Special Task Force Brigade 3
136
st
Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade 3
52
nd
Guards Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment 3
104
th
Airborne Assault Regiment 2
22
nd
Independent Special Force Brigade 2
70
th
217
th
Paratroops Airborne Regiment 1
368
th
Attack Aviation Regiment 1
429
th
45
th
Independent Airborne Reconnaissance Regiment 1
50
th
Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment 1
929
th
State Flight Test Center 1
12
th
Independent Air Regiment of the FSB 1
Unknown 1
134 Anton Lavrov
Of all the Russian regiments that took part in the war, the 135
th
Motorized
Rifle Regiment of the 19
th
Motorized Rifle Division suffered the heaviest losses.
A total of 21 of its servicemen were killed during combat operations, most of
them in just two separate episodes.
The 135
th
nd
Battalion was on peacekeeping
duty in the conflict zone when the war broke out. The battalions servicemen
at the peacekeepers Southern Compound in Tskhinvali were the first to come
under Georgian attack on August 8. Most of the losses there were sustained
in the first few hours of the conflict. A total of 10 servicemen were killed
at the compound, and more than 40 injured. Nevertheless, the battalion
remained an effective fighting force. Its soldiers took only a brief respite after
leaving the compound on August 9; after the end of hostilities they continued
peacekeeping duty in South Ossetia and in the established buffer zone on
Georgian territory.
The 1
st
Motorized Rifle Battalion of the 135
th
was one of the two main battalion-strength tactical combat groups that
entered South Ossetia on August 8, only a few hours after the Georgian assault
began. The battalion sustained its heaviest losses on August 9, as it was trying
to enter Tskhinvali to lift the blockade of the Russian peacekeepers compound,
where the same regiments 2
nd
Battalion was stationed. Upon entering the city,
the 1st Battalion encountered a much larger Georgian force: the Georgian
Army had just launched its second major attempt to take Tskhinvali.
The battalion was drawn into a street fight, where it lost several infantry
fighting vehicles and scores of soldiers, eight of whom were killed. After that
episode, the battalion was withdrawn from Tskhinvali and did not sustain
any more losses.
Another large battle in which several Russian soldiers were killed took
place in the village of Zemo-Khviti on August 11. The 693
rd
Motorized Rifle
Regiment lost five soldiers in one fell swoop, including the entire three-man
crew of a destroyed T-72B tank. Apart from those incidents, there were no
more episodes during the war in which more than three Russian servicemen
were killed.
Direct fire (small arms, armor-mounted guns and anti-tank weapons) was
the single biggest cause of death, claiming 25 people. Another 15 soldiers were
killed by Georgian artillery, mortars and MLR systems. The latter category of
Georgian weapons claimed three soldiers of the 71
st
on the night of August 10-11. There was also a lot of non-combat losses as a
result of several road accidents. Six people died when several Russian planes and
helicopters were either shot down or crashed. One of these six died in a friendly
fire incident. At least two Russian soldiers were killed in accidents involving
firearms after the end of combat operations.
The breakdown of the fatalities by cause of death is as follows:
Cause of death Servicemen killed
Direct fire 25
Indirect fire 15
Road accident 9
Unknown 8
Air incidents 6
Other 2
Total 65
About 250 Russian servicemen received injuries in August 2008. According
to the inquiry committee of the Prosecutor-Generals office, only 162 of those
cases were combat losses inflicted by the adversary. The rest were mostly
head injuries and broken bones, confirming reports of the large number of
road accidents during troop movement into South Ossetia. The day-by-day
distribution for injuries is similar to that for fatalities.
Two Russian servicemen were taken prisoner over the course of combat
operations. Both were members of the crew of the Russian bombers shot down
over Georgia on August 9. Another four Russian soldiers were taken prisoner
by the Georgians in two separate incidents in the first several days after the
war. In both incidents, the servicemen lost their way and drove into Georgian-
controlled territory by mistake. All the Russian servicemen were released in
August 2008 in an all-for-all prisoner swap with Georgia.
Four Russian soldiers were missing after the war ended. Two of them were
later found at their permanent living addresses in Russia.
4
Colonel Koventsov,
the commander of the Russian Tu-22M3 bomber shot down over Georgia, was
initially listed as missing. But his body was eventually identified after Georgia
handed over to Russia tissue samples of a body found on Georgian territory. To
date, only Sergeant Ledzhiev remains missing.
136 Anton Lavrov
Military equipment
The Russian command has not released any official information about the
losses of military equipment during the war. Independent calculations have
been made using the available images and footage, as well as media reports and
the recollections of eyewitnesses. Russia lost three main battle tanks during
combat operations: one T-72B(M), one T-72B and one T-62M.
5
All of them
were lost to hostile fire. There were much greater losses in the light armored
vehicles category - at least 20 such vehicles were destroyed. Known losses include
at least nine BMP-1 vehicles, three BMP-2, two BTR-80, one BMD-2, three
BRDM-2A and one MT-LB.
6
Russia sustained no losses in artillery, MLRS or
air defense systems.
Apart from armor, there were also serious losses in cars and trucks. In the Southern
Compound of the Russian peacekeepers, which came under heavy artillery and tank
fire on August 8, almost the entire fleet of cars and trucks (at least 20 vehicles) was
destroyed. During battles on August 9, Georgian artillery destroyed ten GAZ-66
trucks of the mortar batteries belonging to the 135
th
and 693
rd
Motorized Rifle
Regiments. The trucks were all parked in close proximity on the roadside. Two Ural-
4320 trucks were lost on August 11 during an air raid by Georgian Mi-24 attack
helicopters. Several other trucks were damaged in serious road accidents.
Six Russian planes were lost during combat operations, including three
Su-25, two Su-24M and one Tu-22M3 aircraft. After the end of combat
operations, two helicopters (an Mi-8MTKO and an Mi-24) were destroyed in
a single air crash. The Russian Navy suffered no combat losses to hostile fire in
either manpower or equipment during the war.
South Ossetian and Abkhaz losses
South Ossetias regular armed formations included forces of the Defense
Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Committee for State Security (KGB) and the
State Guards. A large number of reserves also took part in combat operations.
These forces bore the brunt of the fighting with the Georgian regular army
during the first two days of the war, on August 8 and 9.
According to official information released by the South Ossetian Prosecutors
Office, 37 members of the republics armed services died during the war. In the
period from August 1 until the end of combat operations, 27 servicemen of the
South Ossetian MoD were killed and 69 injured.
7
The 10 remaining fatalities
were officers of the Interior Ministry. But apart from the government forces,
there was also a large number of South Ossetian reserves and militia involved
in the fighting. No separate figures of losses among them have been released to
date they were included in the overall count of South Ossetian citizens who
died during the war, which makes it difficult to produce an independent tally.
Based on all the available information, the losses among the South Ossetian
reserves can be estimated at about 50 people. The overall number of South
Ossetian combatants killed during the war is therefore about 90 people. Most
of these losses happened on August 8-9 in and around Tskhinvali.
The South Ossetian losses of equipment included two BMP-2 vehicles. One
T-55 tank was hit from a grenade launcher; its driver was killed. Nevertheless,
the tank remained operable and mobile.
The number of casualties among the unorganized volunteers who came to
the aid of the South Ossetians is even more difficult to estimate than the South
Ossetian losses. There is information that 10 to 15 Russian residents were killed
during combat operations - most of them were from North Ossetia. Only a
few dozen volunteers had arrived in the republic by the time the war broke
out on August 8. And when combat operations began, the Russian authorities
substantially restricted access to the conflict zone for civilians. The influx
of volunteers had picked up only by August 10, when the restrictions were
eased. But by then, most of the fighting was over, and the Georgian army had
withdrawn from South Ossetia. That is why the arrival of the North Caucasian
and Cossack volunteers had very little effect on the course of the war. Neither
did they take any significant losses.
In Abkhazia and the neighboring Georgian districts, there was no direct
contact between the Abkhaz and Georgian forces during the war. There was
no combat action in the south, along the river Inguri. In Kodori Gorge, the
Georgian forces withdrew without coming into contact with the Abkhaz troops
after several days of shelling and air raids by the Russian and Abkhaz aviation.
As a result, the Abkhaz forces lost only one serviceman during the conflict.
8
He
was killed in a friendly fire incident during a clean-up operation in the upper
Kodori Gorge on August 12. Another two soldiers were injured in the same
incident. The Abkhaz forces suffered no losses in military equipment.
1
http://www.mod.gov.ge/2008/list/sia-E.html.
2
http://www.sledcomproc.ru/interview/6925/.
3
http://sites.google.com/site/afivedaywar/Home/losslist.
4
http://www.rian.ru/incidents/20100326/216525188.html.
5
http://sites.google.com/site/afivedaywar/Home/rutanklosses.
6
http://sites.google.com/site/afivedaywar/Home/ruaiflosses.
7
http://osinform.ru/13107-jurijj-tanaev-za-nami-stoit-velikaja-rossija.html.
8
http://www.fontanka.ru/2008/08/14/103/.
138
Type Number Supplier Year
T-72A/B Main Battle Tank 110 Ukraine 2005 2009
T-72M1 Main Battle Tank 71 Czech Rep. 2005 2006
-552 Main Battle Tank 11 Czech Rep. 2000
BMP-2 Armoured Infantry
Fighting Vehicle
52 Ukraine 2004 2005
BMP-1U Armoured
Infantry Fighting Vehicle
15 Ukraine 2008
BTR-80 Armoured
Personnel Carrier
30 Ukraine 2004 2005
BTR-70DI Armoured
Personnel Carrier
58 Ukraine 2008 2009
Nurol Ejder Armoured
Personnel Carrier
76 Turkey 2008 2009
Otokar Cobra Armoured
Personnel Carrier
100 Turkey 2007 2008
Known Deliveries of Military
Equipment to Georgia
in 2000-2009
Prepared by Mikhail Barabanov
140 Mikhail Barabanov
Rafael Wolf Armoured Vehicle 10 Israel 2008
MT-LB Armoured
Multipurpose Vehicle
7 or 14 Ukraine 2006
BTS-5B Armoured
Recovery Vehicle
6 Ukraine 2007
203 mm 2S7 Pion
Self-Propelled Gun
5 Ukraine 2007
152 mm 2S3 Akatsiya
Self-Propelled Howitzer
12 Ukraine 2004 2005
152 mm Dana
Self-Propelled Howitzer
24 Czech Rep. 2003 2006
122 mm D-30 Towed Howitzer 42 Czech Rep. 2001 2006
122 mm/160 mm
GradLAR/LAR-160 MLRS
4 or 8 Israel 2007 2008
122 mm RM-70 MLRS 6 Czech Rep. 2004
262 mm M-87 Orkan MLRS
5
(unconfirmed)
Bosnia
& Herzegovina
2007 or 2008
120 mm Towed Mortar
14
25
15
Bulgaria
Czech Rep.
Bosnia
& Herzegovina
2004
2005
2006
82 mm Mortar 25
Bosnia
& Herzegovina
2006
60 mm Mortar
50
30
60
Bosnia
& Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Greece
2006
2007
2008
23 mm ZU-23-2M Twin
Anti-Aircraft Gun
12 Bulgaria 2005
9K37M1 Buk-M1 (SA-11)
Self-Propelled SAM System
2 batallions Ukraine 2007 2008
9K33M3 Osa-AK/AKM (SA-8B)
Self-Propelled SAM System
up 18
launchers
Ukraine 2006 2008
141 Known Deliveries of Military Equipment to Georgia in 2000-2009
Rafael Spyder-SR Self-Propelled
SAM System
4 launchers Israel 2008
Grom 2 Man-Portable SAM System 30 Poland 2007
Su-25K Attack Aircraft
12
4
Czech Rep.
Bulgaria
2004
2005
L-39 Trainer Aircraft 12 Ukraine 2006 2007
i-24V/P Attack Helicopter
7
1
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
2005
2004
i-8V Utility Helicopter 2 Ukraine 2005
Bell 212 Utility Helicopter 6 USA 2007 2008
Bell UH-1H Utility Helicopter
10
2
USA
Turkey
2000 2001
2001
36D6-M (Tin Shield)
Air Surveillance Radar
2 Ukraine 2005
Kolchuga-M Passive Electronic
Monitoring Radar System
5 Ukraine 2005 2008
Mandat Land-based
Electronic Warfare System
1 Ukraine 2008
Aeronautics Defense Aerostar
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System
1 system Israel 2005
Elbit Hermes 450 Unmanned
Aerial Vehicle
5 Israel 2006
Elbit Skylark Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle
18 Israel 2006 2007
La Combattante II Class
Fast Attack Craft (Missile)
1 Greece 2004
Point Class Patrol Boat 2 USA 2000 2002
MRTP 33 Class Patrol Boat 2 Turkey 2008 2009
MRTP 21 Class Patrol Boat 1 Turkey 2009
Project 106 (Vydra Class)
Small Landing Ship
2 Bulgaria 2001
142
Russian Armed Forces in Georgia (by the end of August 12, 2008)
In South Ossetia
58
th
Army
19
th
135
th
Motorized Rifle Regiment (2 MR battalions, incl. one as PK)
429
th
Motorized Rifle Regiment (2 MR battalions, 2 tank companies)
503
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment (2 MR battalions, 1 tank company)
693
rd
Motorized Rifle Regiment (3 MR battalions, 1 tank battalion)
481
st
Air-Defense Missile Regiment
292
nd
Self-propelled Artillery Regiment
141
st
Independent Tank Battalion
239
th
Independent Reconnaissance Battalion
1493
rd
Independent Engineer Battalion
344
th
Independent Maintenance Battalion
42
nd
70
th
Motorized Rifle Regiment (2 MR battalions, 1 tank company)
71
st
Motorized Rifle Regiment (3 MR battalions, 1 tank battalion)
50
th
Self-propelled Artillery Regiment
417
th
Independent Reconnaissance Battalion
Vostok Battalion (one company)
Zapad Battalion (one company)
76
th
Air Assault Division
104
th
Air Assault Regiment (one battalion)
234
th
Air Assault Regiment (one battalion)
98
th
Airborne Division
217
th
Airborne Regiment (two battalions)
10
th
Independent Spetsnaz Brigade (four companies)
22
nd
Independent Spetsnaz Brigade (one company)
45
th
Independent Reconnaissance Spetsnaz Regiment (one company)
Total: 16,000 soldiers, 130 MBT, 105 SP-Gun, 40 MRL, 400 IFV, 400 APC, 60 AIFV
In Abkhazia region
15
th
Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade (as PK, without heavy equipment)
43
rd
Independent Motorized Rifle Battalion
131
st
Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade (as PK, without heavy equipment)
526
th
558
th
7
th
Air Assault Division
108
th
Air Assault Regiment (two battalions)
247
th
Air Assault Regiment (two battalions)
1141
st
Artillery Regiment
31
st
Independent Air Assault Brigade (two battalions)
45
th
Independent Reconnaissance Spetsnaz Regiment (one company)
Total: 6,500 soldiers, 20 SP-Gun, 100 APC, 100 AIFV
143
Georgian Armed Forces (by the end of 12 August, 2008)
1
st
Infantry Brigade
11
th
12
th
13
th
14
th
Armored Battalion
Artillery Battalion
Logistics Battalion
2
nd
Infantry Brigade
21
st
22
nd
23
rd
24
th
Armored Battalion
Artillery Battalion
Logistics Battalion
3
rd
Infantry Brigade
31
st
32
nd
33
rd
34
th
Armored Battalion
Artillery Battalion
Logistics Battalion
4
th
Infantry Brigade
41
st
42
nd
43
rd
44
th
Armored Battalion
Artillery Battalion
Logistic Battalion
5
th
Infantry Brigade
51
st
52
nd
53
rd
54
th
Armored Battalion
1
st
Artillery Brigade
Self-propelled Artillery Battalion
MRL Battalion
MRL Battalion
Independent Armored Battalion
Independent Light Infantry Battalion
Independent Air-Defense Battalion
Independent Engineer Battalion
Independent Signals Battalion
Total: 18,000 soldiers, 120 MBT, 30 SP-Guns, 40 MRL, 80 Guns, 120 AIF and APC
144
The Authors
Mikhail Barabanov. Graduated from the Moscow National University of Culture,
then worked for the Moscow City Government. An expert on naval history and
armaments. Science editor of the Eksport Vooruzheniy (Arms Exports) magazine
since May 2004. CAST researcher and Editor-in-Chief of the Moscow Defense
Brief magazine since 2008.
Anton Lavrov. Graduated from the Tver State Technical University. An independent
military analyst and one of the most prominent independent Russian researchers of
the 2008 Russian-Georgian War.
Ruslan Pukhov is director of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and
Technologies (CAST) since 1997. In 1996 he graduated from the School of
International Information of MGIMO University under the Russian Foreign
Ministry. In 1996-1997 postgraduate student of the French-Russian Master
dEtudes Internationales Sciences Po MGIMO. In 1996-1997 researcher
for the Conventional Arms Project of the Center for Policy Studies in Russia
(PIR Center). Since 2007 Member of the Public Advisory Board of the Russian
Defense Ministry.
Vyacheslav Tseluiko. Graduated from the Physics and Technology faculty of the
Kharkiv Karazin National University, where he is now a Research Associate at the
Political Science department. Specializes in non-governmental armed formations
and regular armed forces of the former Soviet republics. In 2008 defended a
PhD thesis on Destatization of the military sphere by non-governmental armed
formations in the modern world.
About CAST
The Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technology was founded in 1997. It is a
private research center specializing in the restructuring of Russias defense industry,
the national arms procurement program and the Russian arms trade. CAST is also
involved in studies of the Russian army reform and armed conflicts in the former
Soviet republics. The center publishes the Eksport Vooruzheniy (Arms Exports)
magazine in Russian and Moscow Defense Brief in English.

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