Thread by @MollyMcKew

13 years after Russia invaded Georgia, we still struggle to see the significance clearly.

Part 1 of a new series of interviews with some of the Georgians that ensured the Kremlin didn’t get everything it wanted from the war

via @RenewGreatPower /1

greatpower.us/p/the-august-w…

Usually absent from accounts of the August War is how heartbreaking it was.

Also absent is often how prepared, deliberate, cruel, & devastating the Russian military campaign against Georgia really was. Fires, propaganda, violence.

So here are Georgians to tell the story /2

“Russia had a well-developed strategic intention at the time [of the war]. The strategy was not only with Georgia, but with Russia’s vision of its place in ‘the neighborhood of Russia,’ & in the projection of its power elsewhere,” says @tkesho3. “Georgia was a testing ground.” /3

“We failed to convince our partners that there was a strategic threat coming from Putin’s actions to Georgia’s sovereignty, and that Putin’s goal was challenging Euro-Atlantic security. That he was actually capable of taking this kind of risk,” says @BokeriaGiga /4

“I remember going to Tskhinvali on 8/4,” says @TemuriYakobashv. “It was like a western movie, you see the deserted town… Everybody is evacuated. But there are a bunch of Russian journalists who arrived in to report about the war several days before the war started.” /5

“In one village that was getting bombed, we sent a bus to evacuate people. I was on the phone with a resident to get updates. Throughout the call, I could hear how they were losing people on the way… some made it out of the village, but others did not,” remembers @Helenkhosh /6

“The most unforgettable thing was the phone calls,” says Shota Utiashvili. “The people whose towns were occupied wanted to report what was happening. Seeing their neighbors killed, their houses robbed and burned, and they thought the same thing would happen to them.” /7

Read more of their important stories, more about the allies who arrived to help block the Russian bombing, and stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow, on misperceptions of the war

Via @RenewGreatPower /8

greatpower.us/p/the-august-w…

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Here’s Part 2 of the interviews:

https://twitter.com/mollymckew/status/1424876744281104386