Tbilisi refuses to cooperate with Moscow on probe into Russian-Georgian war

Georgia has refused to cooperate with Russia on the investigation into the Russian-Georgian war in August 2008, Russian Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin said on Monday.

“Regardless of the repeated inquiries about legal aid, the Georgian Justice Ministry’s head prosecutor’s office refused to cooperate with Russian law enforcers under unsubstantiated grounds,” Markin said.

The spokesman said that the Committee had examined Georgian residents’ complaints about Russian soldiers’ war crimes and did not find any “independent proof of Russian troops’ involvement into the crimes on Georgian or South Ossetian territory.”

The Investigative Committee did not provide any additional information on the Georgian reaction.

Relations between Russia and Georgia have been sour since a five-day war between the two former Soviet countries on August 8, 2008, which began when Georgian forces attacked the breakaway republic of South Ossetia in an attempt to bring it back under central control.

Russia recognized South Ossetia and another former Georgian republic, Abkhazia, as independent states two weeks after the conflict. Georgia considers the two regions part of its sovereign territory.

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