It's your typical black and white PR with no quarter given to outside narratives. Filled with half truths and completly devoid of objectivity.
The style is consistent with two patterns. Either nothing preceeds a conflict. No provocations, no skirmishes and years long buildup of tension and history of war. One side simply turns cray cray over night and the other is a total victim, completly innocent and justified in it's actions .... or, Evil West builds up a puppet to commit a horrible crime and Good Guy Russia comes to save the day and defend the innocent like in a poorly written B movie or video game plot.
There are plenty of statements in this video I won't go over again, because we already had this one discussed in a conflict thread, so here's just some of a host of highly controversial points, and you can make your own picture of it:
That comical "genocide" rhetoric which even Russian officials have dismissed, is still recycled over and over, or at least not abandoned already by certain Russian media outlets despite the ever lack of motivational and physical hints, let alone evidence, especialy in Georgian rhetorics, which particularily summs up Russian PR. Lacking in anyhting tangible, but always good in delivering the most overdramatized tales.
The Russian side and IFFM had to acknowledge the fact that the Georgian military deliberately timed their shelling - as they maintain, against fixed and moving
military targets - in intervals so that the people who remained in town ( which was already largely evacuated by then - a whole topic and very interesting controversy in itself ) were able to avoid targeted zones and flee the area before proper ground actions were commenced hours later.
At the 2 min mark guy claims the Georgian side shelled every single village in the region with just GRAD rockets before turning it's guns to the capital. Yet the only villages that happened to be destroyed were the ones occupied by Georgians, and those were completly burnt to the ground.
Several weeks, months and years later, the remaints and fundaments are deliberately leveld by Russian engineers to a ) make room for new military facilities and b ) prevent IDPs from ever returning to their homes. Idk what the current situation is, but that was an ongoing process still, in 2018.
Not only that, even Russian sites (
https://soldatru.ru/read.php?id=2319) acknowledge the fact that the Georgian MC commander ( at the time colonel Mamuka Kurashvili ) informed his Russian counterparts that a large scale military operation was under way against the separatists as to warn them to stay out of the fighting.
How much is something a surprise and deceitful, when there is days of spiked tension preceeded by skirmishes and shelling, massive buildup on both sides, and communication hotlines maintained until the very last second, when the Georgian side literaly
announces to the Russian side, that it finaly had enough with the separatists' shenanigens, and is now about to make a move on them .... ?
The only fact of an ethnic cleansing remain that of the local Georgian populace by the separatists, during and after the active phase of the conflict, supported by the "negligance" and "lack of intervention" of their Russian overseers, if not active involvment in the destruction of their homes.
People on both sides in the region were displaced by the conflict, but guess for whom that event was just a temporary inconvenience, and whom the opposition vehemently denies a return ever since, forcing them to be permanently stuck in idp camps. A couple years ago the authorities in SO also enacted a law that replaces the teaching of the Georgian language in local schools for the few remaining Georgians there, with Russian, without their consent, so to gradualy cleanse everything Georgian in the region, and what many fear eventualy have it absorbed into Russia.
eurasianet.org
On the other side, Ossetians, Abkhazians and Russians are free to move and live wherever and however they want, in Georgia proper as they always were.
So, tell me, who is more fond of ethnic cleansing on what they claim to be their territory but historicaly never was ? who is moving borders and constructing fences contineously since 2008 ?
The 'borderization' has been taking place along the boundary between Georgia and the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which is recognised by Moscow as an independent state.
www.dailymail.co.uk
That is a fact, you can't twist around or apply vice versa, and they know that, and they don't care.
If anyone can claim anything about "genocides" since 1993, it's clearly none of the separatists.
Much as the Russian narrative desperately tries to portray it that way, nothing simply falls from the sky, without any background. The Ossetians have a long history of forced migration into Georgia. First they tried it violently in 1299 when displaced by the Mongols, but got repusled back over the mountains. Then where allowed to settled down four centuries later in the mid-late 17th century, when displaced from their homes yet again, this time around, by the Karbadians.
From then on, up until 1921 before Bolshevik involvment, there was no ethnic tension between both peoples. It developed solely because of their influence and degenerated into ethnic resentment that resulted first in ethnic cleansings against Georgians and consequently several bloody revolts. The only time you can argue that the
Georgians legitimately screwed up with the Ossetians, was in 1991 - that is, if you can call trying to maintain territorial integrity a screw up - in Russia separatists get literaly nuked for trying the same - I personaly think it was a natural response, but managed poorly in a very chaotic period by the wrong people in charge, and both sides were ruthless to eachother in the conflict - but it was solely politicaly motivated as in to physicaly remain intact as one country.
So, here ^ is perhaps why Georgians .... and I think most people with a brain, would understand the frustration and resentment with Russian "narratives".
Did Washington basically provide cover for Georgian actions? Yes as far as it could without taking responsibility and ownership for it.
At the Root of all Issues though is often always local concerns and motivations. Outsiders be they Russia or USA and else simply ride or aggrivate them for own Agenda.
Sure. Just as Russia provided prior, during and after that war and still provides cover to all activities and atrocities committed by itself and it's puppets.