Following an order to retreat on 10 August, Georgian units withdrew from South Ossetia towards the town of Gori. During this the 4th brigade was bombarded by Russian aircraft and reportedly suffered heavy casualties. Russian troops, meeting little or no resistance, moved towards Gori and established control over key positions in western Georgia – including the port of Poti and the military base at Senaki – before starting to destroy Georgian military and infrastructure targets.
On 12 August, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced an official ceasefire, although the Russians continued reconnaissance and raiding operations to seek, destroy and remove abandoned Georgian hardware and munitions. The remaining battle-worthy part of the Georgian army, primarily the 1st infantry brigade that had been rapidly transferred from Iraq in American C-17 military transport planes, concentrated along the northern approach routes to Tbilisi.
Russia’s strong and weak points
The speed of the Russian military reaction had a major bearing on the way the crisis unfolded. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s strategy had apparently assumed that Russia either would not interfere or would not make a decision before South Ossetia had fallen to Georgian control. However, Russia’s immediate response put paid to those plans.
Besides military action, there were reports of Russian cyber-attacks to suppress key Georgian government structures and media outlets during the conflict. If true, this shows Moscow’s readiness to use asymmetric, as well as conventional, means to achieve its goals.
The troops of the North Caucasus military command and the Black Sea Fleet had been preparing for a scenario such as this for at least the past two years. The 58th Army had been carrying out constant manoeuvres, and many exercises conducted close to the border with South Ossetia had used the scenario of repelling a Georgian attack on Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali. When the order came, the army would have acted almost automatically, while logistic support was already prepared.
Most of the Russian officers had combat experience in Chechnya, but a large proportion of the rank-and-file soldiers and non-commissioned officers were raw troops with no previous combat experience. Moreover, although most of the 58th Army, and all airborne and marine infantry personnel are volunteers and not conscripts, the 19th motor rifle division, which was the first to deploy, contained many conscripts.
This later drew criticism from Russian experts, because several years ago the Ministry of Defence had issued a directive that only volunteer servicemen could be sent into conflict zones.
The war provided the opportunity to combat-test at least one post-Soviet weapons system. According to the Moscow Centre for Strategy and Technology Analysis (CAST), the Russian army used the Iskander-M tactical missile system and it proved highly effective in destroying military targets and infrastructure.
However, the operation showed several Russian weaknesses. Systems in the area of C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, surveillance and reconnaissance) were unsatisfactory.
This led to an ambush of one column of the 58th Army on 9 August, during which the commander of the 58th Army, General Anatoly Khrulev, was wounded. It also led to poor coordination between detachments, as well as difficulties in locating enemy gun positions.
The Georgian army’s superior capabilities in communications and electronic warfare enabled it, according to some sources, to suppress Russian communications.
Russian troops also appeared to have limited scope for night-time operations, with few night-vision devices available for infantry and tank detachments.
One important discovery was that the Russian air force was unprepared for suppressing enemy air defences. The Georgians succeeded in creating a compact air-defence force in the conflict zone, as well as around Gori and Tbilisi, using at least one or two battalions of Buk-M1 (SA-11) low- to high-altitude self-propelled SAM (surface-to-air-missile) systems, at least eight self-propelled launch vehicles for Osa-AK (SA-8B) low-altitude self-propelled SAM systems (two batteries), and six to ten self-propelled launch vehicles for Osa-AKM updated SAM systems.
1 | 2 | 3
< Previous Next >