Wikileaks о том, как было дело 8.8.8

Throughout the cold war and often in the years since, Western diplomats covering the Kremlin routinely relied on indirect and secondhand or thirdhand sources. Their cables were frequently laden with skepticism, reflecting the authors’ understanding of the limits of their knowledge and suspicion of official Russian statements.

A 2008 batch of American cables from another country once in the cold war’s grip — Georgia — showed a much different sort of access.... Official Georgian versions of events were passed to Washington largely unchallenged.
...
“Deputy Minister of Defense Batu Kutelia told Ambassador at mid-day August 7 that Georgian military troops are on higher alert, but will not be deploying,” one cable noted, as Georgian heavy military equipment was en route to the conflict zone.

Mr. Kutelia’s assurance did not stand, even in real time. In one of the few signs of the embassy’s having staff in the field, the cable noted that “embassy observers on the highway” saw about 30 government buses “carrying uniformed men heading north.”

Still the embassy misread the signs, telling Washington that while there were “numerous reports that the Georgians are moving military equipment and forces,” the embassy’s “initial impressions” were that the Georgians “were in a heightened state of alertness to show their resolve.”
... it added, “All the evidence available to the country team supports Saakashvili’s statement that this fight was not Georgia’s original intention.” Then it continued: “Only when the South Ossetians opened up with artillery on Georgian villages” did the offensive begin.
... The cable did not provide supporting sources outside of the Georgian government. Instead, as justification for the Georgian attack the previous night, a Georgian government source, Temuri Yakobashvili, was cited as telling the American ambassador that “South Ossetians continued to shoot at the Georgian villages despite the announcement of the cease-fire.”

... The observers, in the heart of the conflict zone, did not report hearing or seeing any Ossetian artillery attacks in the hours before Georgia bombarded Tskhinvali. Rather, they reported to an American political officer that “the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali began at 2335 on Aug. 7 despite the cease-fire.”

Nonetheless, the American cable, relying on Georgian government sources, offered as “one plausible explanation for all this” that South Ossetia’s leader, Eduard Kokoity, had “decided to roll the dice and stimulate a conflict with the Georgians in hopes of bringing in the Russians and thereby saving himself.”

It was not Mr. Kokoity who would require saving. On Aug. 9, as Russian forces flowed into Georgia, a cable noted that “President Saakashvili told the Ambassador in a late morning phone call that the Russians are out to take over Georgia and install a new regime.”

Still the reliance on one-sided information continued — including Georgian exaggerations of casualties and Mr. Saakashvili’s characterization of Russian military actions.

... A few weeks later, after a more stable cease-fire had been negotiated and at a time when the American economy was sliding into a recession, President George W. Bush announced a $1 billion aid package to help Georgia rebuild.


Andrew W. Lehren contributed reporting.