The ruling Georgian Dream party has accused the formerly ruling opposition of starting and provoking the August 2008 War, vowing again to punish the opposition after October’s parliamentary elections.

In a statement about the August 2008 War, Georgian Dream railed on the role the formerly ruling United National Movement (UNM) in the conflict. They cited a 2008 Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly report on the conflict suggesting that Georgia’s shelling of Tskhinvali (Tskhinval) without warning played a part in provoking ‘open and fully fledged warfare’.

‘The [United] National Movement has committed many crimes against the country and people, but the biggest and most serious crime is the adventure committed in 2008’.

‘In order to ensure the irreversible development of our country and to establish long-term peace in Georgia, it is of the utmost importance that these events be given a proper legal assessment’, read the statement, echoing remarks made by party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili in April when he vowed to crack down on the opposition should Georgian Dream secure victory in October’s parliamentary elections.

[Read more: Ivanishvili promises crackdown on opposition after elections]

‘We will play the role of the plaintiff in this process, and the [UNM] will have to be held collectively responsible for the treacherous crime committed against the country and people’.

The statement, largely dedicated to the ruling party’s criticism of the UNM’s handling of the August War, only mentioned Russia’s culpability at its conclusion. 

The statement also criticised the UNM for commemorating the 16th anniversary of the war on 7 August instead of 8 August.

‘On [Wednesday], Georgian society once again saw another hypocritical PR campaign of the [UNM] in connection with the August war’, they said of the UNM’s commemoration of the war. ‘The members of the war party [the UNM] visited the graves of heroic soldiers and published condolence texts. They do all this as if they were not to blame for the tragedy that happened in 2008’.

‘The treasonous crime of the [UNM] had the worst consequences. As a result of the 2008 war, we lost two historic regions, hundreds of soldiers and civilians were killed, and 30,000 people were displaced. It is unacceptable for a crime of this scale to go unpunished without a legal assessment’.

Georgia’s Ministry of IDPs, Labour, Health and Social Protection has reported that there were around 280,000 internally displaced people from Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, up to 21,000 of them displaced during the 2008 war.

Georgian Dream officials commemorated the August War on Thursday, with Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze elaborating that Georgian Dream would attempt to hold the UNM legally accountable for the war through different channels.

‘It could be an appeal to the Prosecutor’s Office, it could be a parliamentary investigative commission, it could be an appeal to the Constitutional Court — all the instruments could be used, or a specific instrument could be used’, he said.

‘The public will receive information about all this, but the main thing is that the crime of 2008, which was committed by [imprisoned third president of Georgia Mikheil] Saakashvili, the regime [of the UNM], should be fully investigated’.

In 2021 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that following the 2008 August War, the Russian Federation had exercised ‘effective control’ over Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The tribunal also found Russia in breach of several articles of the European Convention of Human Rights in connection to the war.

On Thursday, UNM chair Tina Bokuchava cited the court’s ruling in her response to Georgian Dream’s statements.

‘The highest tribunal in the world, among them, legally established the truth that the whole world knew, that Russia invaded the territory of Georgia, that Russia is the occupier, which has occupied 20% of Georgia’, she said.

‘The only country that denies this fact is [President Vladimir] Putin’s Russia, and it is very sad that today Georgia has a government that repeats the narrative of the Kremlin, Putin’s Russia’.

For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.