Strongman, The

way to make really important decisions. But it is the Georgian way – it is at least how that group does things. I mean, they weren’t drunk, they weren’t juvenile or stupid, they were just kind of shooting the breeze. I came in and they said, “You say we don’t have an interagency coordination process, well this is how we do it. Would you like some wine?” ’
    Though it was Georgia, in the end, that lit the touch-paper, it was Russia that found itself in the dock for the conflagration. Partly, this was because views were coloured by the initial international television coverage of the war, which showed little, if any, of the Georgian bombing and destruction of Tskhinvali and a great deal of the subsequent Russian bombing of Gori. That in turn happened because the Russians kept journalists out of South Ossetia, whereas the Georgians positively encouraged the press to go to Gori. The BBC’s foreign editor, Jon Williams, noted in a blog: ‘It’s not been safe enough to travel from Tbilisi to the town of Tskhinvali in South Ossetia, the scene, say the Russians, of destruction at the hands of the Georgians. Not until Wednesday – six days after the first shots were fired – was a BBC team able to get in to see what had happened for themselves, and then only in the company of Russian officials.’
    The role of PR advisers in the war has been much written about, and much exaggerated. Georgia’s principal asset was President Saakashvili himself, who gave a constant stream of interviews, in fluent English and French – without, I fancy, much encouragement from his Western PR team. Moscow, on the other hand, steadfastly resisted the urgings of its PR advisers to allow journalists to travel to South Ossetia, and only belatedly began to offer English-speaking interviewees to stations such as the BBC and CNN.
    But the main reason for the opprobrium heaped upon Russia rather than Georgia was because – whatever the circumstances – it invaded a neighbouring, independent country. It did this in order to prevent that country from doing something absolutely legitimate under international law – restoring (albeit in brutal fashion) its territorial integrity in precisely the same way as Russia had restored its rights over Chechnya. The Russian leadership was incapable of seeing this parallel. It accused the West of tolerating Georgia’s aggression, forgetting that the West had by and large also tolerated Russia’s much more brutal assault on Chechnya. Both cases were seen by the West as internal affairs. Attacking a foreign country is different. As the Russian journalist Andrei Kolesnikov of Novaya gazeta put it, ‘Russia behaved as if it were the mother country and Georgia was its remote, rebellious province.’
    The result was the dismemberment of Georgia, a sovereign state, and the permanent displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, mainly Georgians, from their homes on land that they and their ancestors had inhabited for centuries. In the case of Abkhazia, the Russians effectively handed the territory, now ‘ethnically cleansed’ of Georgians, to a tiny nation who prior to 1991 had comprised just one-fifth of the population. 23 One-sixth of Georgia’s territory is now occupied by Russian troops.
    In Beijing, only hours after the Georgian assault began, Vladimir Putin met both President Bush and President Sarkozy. Both tried to caution restraint in Russia’s response, and both were rebuffed. Putin was no longer commander-in-chief, but he acted as if he was. Sarkozy introduced Putin to his son, Louis, who received a warm hug – but that was the last of Putin’s friendly gestures. Sarkozy’s aide, Jean-David Levitte, recalls his boss’s attempt at peacemaking. ‘He said to President Putin, “Listen, I currently hold the presidency of the EU and I can make the EU do everything possible to stop this war, a war that would be a catastrophe for Russia, for Europe, and for Russian and European cooperation. But for that, Vladimir, I need 48 hours.” The answer? “Nyet.” So President Sarkozy said, “Hang on, Vladimir, do you realise what’s at stake here? At least give me 24 hours.” “Nyet, impossible.” The president said, “Well, give me until 8pm.” “Nyet.” ’ 24
    It was President Medvedev, though, who took the decision to send in Russian forces. He claims, somewhat improbably, that he did not even discuss the matter with Putin for 24 hours, due to the absence of a secure line to