One year anniversary of the August 2008 Russia-Georgia War and regional implications

August 8 marked the one year anniversary of the beginning of the Russia-Georgia war which resulted in breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia declaring their independence, albeit recognized only by Russia and Nicaragua.

According to a report by Amnesty International, hundreds of civilians were killed and “an estimated 30,000 people, mostly ethnic Georgians, remain displaced.” In January, Human Rights Watch reported  that initial Russian and South Ossetian figures of civilian deaths ranging from 1,400 to more than 2,000 were not clearly documented. Following his visit to the region, Luc Van den Brande, the chairperson of the Ad Hoc Committee established by PACE stated that “independent reports put the total number of deaths at between 300 and 400, including the military," adding that "these figures are far lower than those initially advanced in particular by Russia," and suggested that "all sides agree that the initial high numbers were inflated." 

Dagestan marked the tenth anniversary of Shamil Basayev’s invasion of the republic. Basayev, an infamous Chechen rebel commander and veteran of the first Chechen-Russian war, led hundreds of insurgents into Dagestan with the aim of “liberating” Dagestan from Russian occupation and establishing Sharia law. The newly appointed Prime Minister Putin responded swiftly, launching a full scale assault on the rebels, driving them out of Dagestan and back into Chechnya. The Russian government justified the Second Chechen War following this incursion into Dagestan, and delegated security in the republic to the Chechen president, Ramzan Kadyrov. However, as noted by journalists, experts and human rights activits, there has been an alarming escalation of violence and militant activity in Chechnya in the recent months. The surge of violence calls into question the effectiveness of the Kremlin’s strategy in Chechnya and the larger region of the North Caucasus. In Dagestan, there has been a significant increase in violence due to growing radicalization of the mainstream youth, and growing extremist Islamist ideology.