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The sixth event, however, was the most significant. It was the entry of regular Russian troops into Georgia through the Roki tunnel. Russian troop movements must already have started on August 6, the day before the hostilities began. The Georgian government had intercepted cell-phone conversations between South Ossetian border guards saying that Russian border guards had taken over the control of the Roki tunnel at the Georgian side and that a Russian military column had passed through at about four o’clock in the morning. How many troops had gone through was not clear. The name of a Russian colonel who was in charge was mentioned. He commanded a unit of the 58th Army that was not authorized to be in Georgia. The Georgian peacekeeping commander in South Ossetia, Brigadier General Mamuka Kurashvili, phoned the Russian supreme commander of the mixed (Russian-Georgian) peacekeeping forces, Major General Marat Kulakhmetov, asking for an explanation. Kulakhmetov promised to call back, but did not do so. Thereupon President Saakashvili sent an envoy, Temuri Yakobashvili, to Tskhinvali to talk to a Russian diplomat, Yury Popov. Popov, however, did not show up. The reason he later gave was that his car had a flat tire and he didn’t have a spare one. The only Russian official Yakobashvili was able to meet in a deserted Tskhinvali was General Kulakhmetov. The Russian general proposed that Georgia declare a unilateral ceasefire. During the conversation he told Yakobashvili that he was fed up with the Ossetian separatists, who, according to him, had become uncontrollable, apparently suggesting that the Russians would eventually take a neutral stance if Tbilisi were to attack the separatists.^[8]

A Slow-Motion Annexation?

The Georgians did not fall in this trap. They followed Kulakhmetov’s advice and declared a unilateral ceasefire on August 7 at 6:40 p.m. The only response was an intensified shelling from 8:30 p.m. of the Georgian villages north of Tskhinvali by South Ossetian militias.^[9] At 10:30 p.m. two Georgian peacekeepers were killed and six wounded. Saakashvili received new intelligence reports, transmitted by an American satellite, that a column of 150 Russian tanks had entered the Roki tunnel.^[10] Saakashvili found himself confronted by a situation in which Russian troops and heavy equipment were being brought illegally into South Ossetia, gradually building up enough military potential for a direct attack on Georgia. Saakashvili’s efforts to call President Medvedev had no success. On the evening of August 7 Saakashvili was facing a dilemma: allow Russia’s military infiltration of Russia into South Ossetia to continue, and thereby permitting Russia to complete a huge military buildup, and enabling it to crush the Georgian army, or to act.