By Khatuna Chapichadze
TBILISI: In August 2025, Georgia has marked the 17th anniversary of the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, a brief but consequential conflict that resulted in over 400 deaths, the displacement of approximately 130,000 people, and the continued occupation of about 20% of Georgia’s territory by the Russian forces.
Along with many other points of contention due to the differing narratives of the sides of the conflict, the start date of the 2008 Russo-Georgian War has also importantly become a point of controversy, with Georgia officially citing August 7, and Russia often claiming August 8. While it has also been an internationally established fact that the war began on August 7 with the entry of the Russian military forces into Georgia through the Roki Tunnel, prior to any Georgian offensive or response, referring to evidences for even earlier preparations for the military aggression from the part of Russia, the latter often keeps claiming that the war started on August 8, framing it as a “counterattack”, following Georgia’s “invasion” of the Tskhinvali Region or so-called South Ossetia, one of the two breakaway regions of Georgia, occupied by Russia in fact since already the early 1990s.
Broader Georgian society, as well as the international partners of the country, have found current Georgian Dream Party (GDP) Government’s position at odds with the common knowledge of the well-established facts, coinciding strangely with the Russian interpretation of the events, and its justification for assaulting Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. GDP keeps blaming its major opposition – United National Movement (UNM) and previous UNM government led by Mikheil Saakashvili for initiating the conflict and politically influencing the military operations as the war unfolded to a disastrous result, – the stance defended and even more promoted recently, on September 2 – by the GD one-party parliament’s quite controversial investigative commission headed by MP Tea Tsulukiani, a former justice minister, during the presentation of the 470-page commission report. Although, this perspective has been widely denounced and rejected within and outside of Georgia.
Worth mentioning that on August 7, traditionally, the European Union (EU) reaffirmed its unwavering support for Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, condemning Russia’s ongoing military occupation of the Georgian territories. Similarly, the U.S. Embassy in Georgia issued a statement, honoring the victims of the war and recognizing the resilience of the Georgian people.
On August 8, the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement urging Russia to revoke its recognition of the occupied regions of Abkhazia and so-called South Ossetia, withdraw its troops from the Georgian territory, and cease obstructing the return of internally displaced persons and refugees to their homes.
Khatuna Chapichadze is a Ph.D. in Social Sciences, political scientist, Associate Professor and a Supervisor of the Bachelor’s Educational Program in European Studies at the Department of Politics and International Relations, Faculty of Engineering Economics, Media Technologies and Social Sciences, Georgian Technical University (GTU, Georgia).
