Since July 31, Russian state television channels have been airing inflammatory stories about Georgian forces firing on South Ossetia’s administrative center Tskhinvali, inflicting civilian casualties and causing a refugee exodus to North Ossetia. The allegations are not verified by any independent source nor can they be, given Russia’s exclusion of any meaningful international monitoring in South Ossetia, disabling the OSCE and precluding Georgian air surveillance.
Moscow’s propaganda wave closely resembles previous ones in the continuing political warfare against Georgia. For their part, leaders in Tskhinvali threaten to escalate the hostilities deeper inside Georgian territory, using “their own forces,” that is, a proxy war. “We will force [the Georgians] out from the conflict zone ourselves. I state once again that we have the necessary troops and equipment [sil i sredstv] to do this,” the South Ossetian “president” Eduard Kokoity warned.....
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