The South Ossetian side reported at about 1am on August 8 that its militias were engaged in direct fighting against Georgian servicemen on the outskirts of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.

The South Ossetian Press and Information Committee said that Georgian forces had tried to “storm Tskhinvali.”

Mamuka Kurashvili, a Georgian MoD official in charge of overseeing peacekeeping operations, said before midnight that the Georgian side had been forced to “restore constitutional order in the entire region.”