User:Nanobear~enwiki/Timeline of Battle of Tskhinvali
Trying to construct a detailed timeline of the battle of Tskhinvali from multiple sources:
August 7
- 11:30 p.m. Georgian forces began a major artillery assault on Tskhinvali.[1] At 11:45 OSCE monitors report shells falling on Tskhinvali every 15–20 seconds.[1]
August 8
- Early hours. The Georgian Army entered South Ossetia after a prolonged artillery (BM-21 or RM-70) onslaught on the city of Tskhinvali.[2]
- 12:15 am. General Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, reported to OSCE monitors, that his unit had come under fire and that they had casualties.[3] The headquarters of the Russian peacekeeping unit in South Ossetia were reportedly also hit and several barracks were destroyed.[4]
- 03:46 am. Georgian forces launched a tank attack on the southern suburbs of the city according to rebel sources, but the local militia were resisting.[5] Georgian Su-25 aircraft bombard the city.[5]
- 04:45 am. The Georgian State Minister for Reintegration, Temuri Yakobashvili, announced, that Tskhinvali was nearly surrounded by the Georgian forces.[6]
- 02:00 am. Starting around 2 a.m., international press agencies began running reports of Russian tanks in the Roki tunnel.[7]
- Around dawn. According to a senior Russian official, the first Russian combat unit, the First Battalion of the 135th Regiment, was ordered at around dawn of August 8 to move through the Roki Tunnel and reinforce the Russian forces in Tshkinvali.[8]
- 2:30 pm. According to him, the unit passed through the tunnel at 2:30 p.m. It reached Tshkinvali at the evening, meeting heavy resistance from Georgian troops. Georgia disputes the account, saying that it was in heavy combat with Russian forces near the tunnel long before dawn of 8 August.[9]
- 10:00 am. According to Georgia, Russian military aircraft violated Georgian airspace around 10 a.m. on 8 August.[10]
- 10:00 am. According to an article in the Washington Post, 1,500 Georgian ground troops had entered the centre of Tskhinvali by 10 a.m. on August 8, but were pushed back three hours later by Russian artillery and air attacks.[11]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Jon Swain (November 9, 2008). "Georgia fired first shot, say UK monitors". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2008-11-12.
- ^ Heavy fighting in South Ossetia, BBC News, August 8 2008 (Georgian MLRS launched rockets on Tskhinvali - BBC video)
- ^ Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question
- ^ [1]
- ^ a b Chronology of Events in South Ossetia 7-11 August 2008
- ^ Tskhinvali almost surrounded - Georgian official, Itar-Tass, August 8 2008.
- ^ The Chronicle of a Caucasian Tragedy
- ^ Georgia Offers Fresh Evidence on War’s Start
- ^ Georgia Offers Fresh Evidence on War’s Start
- ^ "Russian tanks 'rolling into Georgian breakaway'" (CNN)
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
washingtonpost.comwas invoked but never defined (see the help page).