An EU-commissioned report says Georgia's unjustifiable attack on its breakaway South Ossetia region “marked the beginning” of last year's war with Russia. The report says the five-day war in August 2008 followed “long periods of increasing tensions, provocations and incidents” between the two countries. The report released Wednesday sought to clarify what caused the war. Georgia said it launched its offensive to repel Russian forces invading the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, while Russia insisted it sent in troops only after the Georgian barrage. The EU report says Georgia's opening attack on South Ossetia was not justifiable under international law. “In the mission's view, it was Georgia which triggered off the war when it attacked Tskhinvali (in South Ossetia) with heavy artillery on the night of Aug. 7 and 8, 2008,” the head of the fact-finding mission said. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has long insisted that the attack in South Ossetia was launched after Russian tanks moved into the breakaway region. “None of the explanations given by the Georgian authorities in order to provide some form of legal justification for the attack lend it a valid explanation,” said the team head, Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavina. “In particular, there was no massive Russian military invasion under way, which had to be stopped by Georgian military forces shelling Tskhinvali,” she added in a statement to coincide with a report of some 1,000 pages. But the investigating team, commis-sioned last December to look into the causes of the five-day war, also found evidence that Russia had fomented tensions. The investigators also found evidence that both sides had been involved in ethnic cleansing against Georgians and their villages and settlements in South Ossetia. Despite the findings, both Russia and Georgia welcomed Wednesday the report, saying that it vindicated their actions. Moscow's ambassador to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, said the findings provided “unequivocal confirmation of who started the war - it was Georgia.”
