August 8 marks the ninth anniversary of the Russian military invasion into Georgia, which many call a five-day war. This was the first overt military aggression in a series of subsequent predatory wars of Putin’s Russia. The world community failed to timely and adequately respond. Emboldened by expressions of concern paired with actual inaction, the Kremlin embarked on new aggressive actions: annexation of Crimea, unleashing of war in the east of Ukraine, armed support to the criminal regime of Assad in Syria.

Despite the ceasefire, the war in Georgia is not over, it has only changed its shape. To date, over 20% of the territory of Georgia is under control of the Russian occupants, and this figure is growing every day, as Russia, in violation of all treaties and international law, continues the policy of creeping occupation, kidnaps and kills civilians.

On the eve of the ninth anniversary of the Russian aggression against Georgia, InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community decided to revisit the subject. The chronology of those not-so-distant events is very well reflected in the feature of the famous Georgian blogger Giorgi Cyxymu Jakhaia  – Beginning of Russian military aggression against Georgia in August 2008.

Among the materials on Georgia, published on the InformNapalm website, it is necessary to highlight both our own materials and the research of damoukidebloba project, as well as the data from other sources that defeat the Russian propaganda:

• Anniversary of the rise of Russian revanchism: the Number of the Beast 08/08/08 (08/08/2015)
• Russian “peacekeepers” in August 2008 war(10/29/2015)
• The results of Russian military aggression against Georgia in 2008. Infographics (11/05/2015)
• Georgia’s borders obliterated by Russian aggression. The continuation of Russian creeping aggression (11/06/2015)
• The War of 08.08.08. Eight years later (08/06/2016)

In addition to this, InformNapalm conducted a number of its own OSINT investigations to identify Russian servicemen who participated in the Russian aggression against Georgia in August 2008 and who were involved in war crimes and ethnic cleansing. These are some of them:

• Penance of a Pskov paratrooper(11/18/2015). The article covers a group of Russian paratroopers of the 104th Airborne Regiment from Pskov, who fought in Georgia in 2008. Nineteen individuals have been identified. Eight of them are still active members of the Russian Army and six took part in Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine.
• Dynasty of Russian war criminals. Biography of the invader (07/22/2016). The article presents the Shtondenko dynasty of Russian officers: the father – Colonel Yuriy Shtondenko, a veteran of the war in Georgia, who served at the spearhead of the Russian invasion as the Deputy Commander of the 42nd Division; the son – Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Shtondenko, who is currently serving at the Russian army base in the occupied Abkhazia.
• Bond’s Career Path: from Occupied Tskhinvali to Occupied Crimea (03/01/2016) This is a story about Yevgeniy Zhelezkin, the Russian officer, who participated in the war of August 2008. He served at the Russian army base in Tskhinval in the occupied part of Georgia, until his recent transfer to the coastal forces of the Black Sea Fleet in the occupied Crimea.

We should also mention the InformNapalm publications, which demonstrate the cynicism and vileness of Russian invaders who share photos posing in front of the villages they destroyed and reveal the incidents of vandalism and war crimes:

• “Russian world”: exclusive video of the Russian soldiers’ perverted entertainment near Gori(11/03/2015)
• “We are local”: Russian invaders putting down roots in occupied lands(11/13/2015)
• Russian invaders shooting a Georgian pilot catapulted from an aircraft (12/01/2015)
• “Russian world”: a view from space (09/07/2016)

The atmosphere and emotions of those August days of 2008 are most realistically shown in the Russian documentary by Andrei Nekrasov Russian Lessons.

This publication was prepared specially for InformNapalm.

Translated by Artem Velichko
An active link to the authors and our project is obligatory for any reprint or further public use of the material.
(Creative Commons — Attribution 4.0 International — CC BY 4.0)
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