Before war in Georgia, Putin had a pretty good image in the West. Back then Putin was nowhere near bad as in the recent years. Power corrupts, long time rulers get crazier with time...
Hello, dear account dedicating all their two posts to repeating Russian talking points.
Georgia was indeed dumb enough to let themselves get provoked to fire the first rounds. It's very strange though that the peace loving defensive-only Russian forces ended up permanently occupying even more Georgian territory than before the war. That's the Russian history, Russia never attacks, it only defends itself, by advancing and annexing enemy territory.
That part of the report has been widely panned. Russia had brokered a ceasefire with separatists in that region in 1992, then placed its own troops there to act as peacekeepers. Putin's gaze lands on Georgia, and he moves more troops border, the separatists blow up a police car two days after joint American-Georgian military exercises, Georgia's military responds, and within hours, Russian tanks are rolling into Georgia. The EU report was clear that Russia's response was out of line.
> The report found no evidence to support Russian allegations that Georgia was carrying out genocide against the South Ossetian population.
> But it said there were "serious indications" of ethnic cleaning against ethnic Georgians in South Ossetia and found Russian forces "would not or could not" stop atrocities by armed groups in areas they controlled.
