Putin: Russia Had Prepared for Georgia War

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia did have a contingency plan for its 2008 war with Georgia and had even trained militiamen in the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Putin's confession immediately led Georgia to accuse the Kremlin of starting the brief but bloody war on 2008. Speaking on the fourth anniversary of the war, Putin said he had approved the contingency plan to counter a possible attack from Georgia months before the conflict broke out. "There was a plan, it's no secret in my opinion," Putin said at the Kremlin in televised remarks. "It's within the framework of this plan that the Russian side acted. It was prepared by the General Staff at the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007." "It was approved by me, agreed with me," said Putin. "Moreover, within the framework of this plan the training was conducted of South Ossetian militiamen," he said, adding that the men proved very helpful during the conflict. Putin, who at the time served as prime minister after the maximum two consecutive Kremlin terms allowed by the Constitution, said he called Medvedev twice to discuss the conflict. Georgia said Putin's revealing comments proved that the Kremlin was responsible for the conflict. "Such a confession never happened before and it's a paradox that even today some people are arguing about who was the aggressor," the head of Georgia's National Security Council, Giga Bokeria, told journalists. The two neighbours clashed when President Mikheil Saakashvili's military attempt to reassert control over Moscow-backed South Ossetia was crushed by Russian troops who pushed deep into Georgian territory. After the war that stunned the West, Russia recognised South Ossetia and the fellow Georgian rebel region of Abkhazia as independent, a move that has been followed by only a handful of other far-flung states.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/1218985/1/.html
http://rt.com/politics/putin-ossetia-war-plan-168/