Yes, but it's not ethnically Georgian, which was sort of the problem. That wikipedia article toes the Georgian line, which is sort of disappointing, but they do cite the EU report (via the 'world socialist news', which I don't really want to cite) that the pretext was manufactured.
The Russian point of view is that they were stopping an ethnic cleansing right on their border, before it could get too far. It's not a crazy point of view, the Georgians were shelling a mostly non-Georgian city. The US is also not a super neutral observer, we were selling them tons of weapons, and the Georgians were pandering pretty hard to us.
> The Russian point of view is that they were stopping an ethnic cleansing right on their border, before it could get too far. It's not a crazy point of view
No, it's not crazy, it's just pure propaganda. 25% of Georgian Ossetians lived (and continue to live) outside of South Ossetia[1]. Not to mention that the Russians were happy to allow the _real_ ethnic cleansing of Georgians to happen after their invasion[2]. And the Ossetian militia had been shelling Georgian villages before it all happened[3] (most probably, with weapons provided by Russia).
I think you're misinterpreting me- it was a problem for the Georgians, not the Russians. Saakashvili thought he could get away with a short, victorious war. A bunch of people died, and then a bunch more because Russia is big on punctuation.
It's also worth noting that Russia has been playing the long game here- the South Ossetians and Abkhazians aren't ethnically Russian, and no one is claiming they are- but Russia has issued more than 90% of them passports.
I sort of think people are mostly too eager for good guys and bad guys. I really don't think that what happened in Georgia is a straight line towards Russian World Domination.
There isn't a good solution to this problem. And it's a problem Americans often have a very hard time understanding due to cultural differences.[1] But the world does step in occasionally to stop one ethnicity from beating up another even within the same country. NATO did so in Yugoslavia.
But it's also used as an excuse for expansionism. The build up to WW2 was Germany doing this exact thing.
But post WWII European history also has a lot of ethnic regrouping. All Germans were put back inside Germany. Borders are drawn to group people. Mixed ethnic nations broke apart into single ethnic countries.
This question is at the heart of the blood bath in twenty century Europe.
[1]- Americans treat ethnicity very differently than most cultures since we have such diverse ethnicities with no little to no cultural heritage leftover. America entirely decouples ethnicity and nationality. So it seems strange that it's such an important force in other countries.
My argument is that South Ossetian leaders did do "whatever they wanted" there, and the Russians condoned and helped them, contrary to what you're alluding to above.
"EU investigation says Tbilisi launched indiscriminate assault on South Ossetia..with a massive artillery attack"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/30/georgia-attack...