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Ronald D. Asmus has described the extremely stressful and precarious situation in which the Georgian leadership found itself in the late hours of August 7, 2008. “They all believed Georgia was being invaded in a kind of slow-motion, incremental way.”^[11] “Moscow,” he wrote, “was trying to de facto annex these two disputed enclaves bit by bit in slow motion—testing to see if the West would protest and daring Tbilisi to try to stop them.”^[12] It was also clear that Moscow would have no difficulty in finding an adequate casus belli to invade the territory of Georgia proper in order to reach its ultimate goal: to topple Saakashvili and bring about a regime change in Tbilisi. Waiting for the Russian troops to choose the right moment for attack meant that Georgia would leave the initiative to the other side. Considering the great inequality in manpower and military equipment^[13] it would be an easy walkover for the Russians with disastrous consequences for Georgia. Confronted with the continuing incursion by Russian forces into South Ossetia and the intensified shelling of the Georgian villages north of Tskhinvali, at 11:30 p.m. Saakashvili ordered his troops to enter South Ossetia in order to occupy Tskhinvali and stop the advance of the Russian troops. “Did Saakashvili fall into a trap?” asked Svante Cornell and S. Frederick Starr.^[14] They concluded: “Maybe so, but . . . even if he had not, a pretext would have been found to proceed with the campaign as it had been planned.”^[15] Indeed, Saakashvili’s decision to attack was a case of a desperate, last minute forward defense, the ultimate trump card Georgia had at its disposal to avoid of being overrun by its huge neighbor. By blocking or preventing a Russian assault, the Georgian leadership—fully aware of the fact that Georgia could never win the war—hoped to win time, thereby enabling the United States and the EU to intervene and find a diplomatic solution.

Some commentators have stressed the fact that the Georgians did not mention the presence of Russian troops in South Ossetia before August 8. This was the case, for instance, with Eric Fournier, the French ambassador in Tbilisi. However, Jonathan Littell brought more clarity in this case when he visited Georgia in October 2008.

Nobody has talked publicly about Russian tanks before 8 August. But, in private, it is more complicated: whilst the Ambassador of France in Tbilisi categorically affirms: “The Georgians have never called their European allies to inform them: ‘The Russians are attacking us,’ Matthew Byrza, a high American diplomat in charge of the Georgian dossier since the start of the Bush administration, explains to me: That the Georgians were more open with us than with the Europeans is normal because of our privileged relationship. Eka Tkechelachvili, their Minister of Foreign Affairs, has called me at 11.30h [Tbilisi time] and said to me: ‘The Russians are entering into South Ossetia with tanks and more than 1,000 men, we have no choice, we are ending the ceasefire. . . .’ The Georgians were convinced that that really happened.”^[16]

It is self-evident that the ambassador of France, one of the leading countries that some months earlier blocked Georgia’s Membership Action Plan for NATO, was not the first one on the list to be called by Saakashvili on that fateful evening.

The Central Question: Did Russian Troops Enter South Ossetia Before the War?