Word: reportings
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After last year's war between Russia and Georgia, which left at least 250 people dead and parts of Georgia in ruin, each country was eager to point the finger of blame at the other for starting the conflict. On Wednesday, an independent investigating team issued a highly anticipated report saying that neither country can escape fault...
...page report, the investigators say Georgia fired the first shots in the August 2008 conflict when it launched an attack on the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which the team deemed "unjustifiable" under international law. But the report, which was sponsored by the European Union, says the attack followed months of Russian provocation, including a heavy military buildup in the region and increased support for separatist movements in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway region of Georgia. (See pictures of the war in Georgia...
...report was written over nine months by Heidi Tagliavini, a Swiss diplomat leading the inquiry, with the help of 19 European military, legal and history experts tasked with investigating the "causes and roots" of the conflict. The war lasted just five days: Russian forces quickly repelled the Georgian assault and advanced deep into Georgian territory, pulling back only when a cease-fire was brokered. Yet soldiers remain on the border between the two countries to this day, and tensions have not subsided. (Read "One Year On, Could Russia and Georgia Fight Another...
...says the conflict started the moment Georgia shelled the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on the night of Aug. 7-8, 2008. "In the mission's view, it was Georgia which triggered off the war when it attacked Tskhinvali with heavy artillery," Tagliavini said in a statement accompanying the report. The document condemns the bombing, saying it was an overly aggressive response to the provocation. "It is not possible to accept that the shelling of Tskhinvali ... would satisfy the requirements of having been necessary and proportionate in order to defend those villages," it says...
...Russian officials were quick to claim that the report cleared them of culpability. "Who started the war? On that question the report gives an unequivocal answer," says Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's ambassador to the E.U. (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory...