Word: russian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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...
...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...
...inquiry rejects outright the Russian allegations that Georgia had carried out a genocide against the South Ossetian population, but it accepts Tbilisi's charges that ethnic cleansing took place against Georgians driven from South Ossetia in the conflict...
...Georgia said the investigation proved that Russia had been preparing for war all along. "We are glad that almost all the facts we have alleged have been confirmed, in particular that armed Russian units entered Georgia before August 7," says Salome Samadashvili, Georgia's ambassador to the E.U. "The report confirmed that Russia committed an act of aggression against a sovereign state, thus breaking the U.N. charter." (Read "In South Ossetia, Families Remain Torn Apart...
...Lawrence Sheets, Caucasus project director of the nonprofit organization Crisis Group, is skeptical about whether the report will change anything. "Russia has firmly re-established its geopolitical position in the region, so there is almost no prospect of Georgian reunification," he says. Since the cease-fire, Russian troops have effectively sealed the border between South Ossetia and the rest of Georgia, and increased their military presence in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But while Moscow has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations, only Nicaragua and Venezuela have followed suit...