"What do you mean, 'to be rescued,' Madam Tea?! We tried to avoid the conflict until the last moment. I don’t understand what you are asking me! What do you want, after all?! What are you asking?!" – said General Mamuka Kurasvhili to the members of the temporary investigative commission during the session.

At today's session of the commission, the topic under discussion was the situation in Georgia’s occupied territories between 2004-2008 and the August 2008 war. The commission members, including the commission chair Tea Tsulukiani, repeatedly questioned him about the evacuation of civilians during the war.

"As the head of the peacekeeping operations staff, when you learned—either from television or on the ground—that the other side started evacuating civilians from August 1, and when Commander Kulakhmetov did not even express condolences, you also mentioned that you were alone. If you were alone, doesn't that mean our civilians were completely alone as well?! I am repeating your own words—when you realized that even you were alone, was it within your authority, at the very least, to sound the alarm in order to prevent civilian casualties? And if this was part of your responsibility, what did you do about it?" Tsulukiani asked Mamuka Kurasvhili.

Mamuka Kurasvhili responded that he had informed the Joint Staff.

"How do you imagine it? Should I have raised the alarm without the Security Council or the General Staff and gone knocking on doors? I don’t understand what you’re asking," Kurasvhili responded to Tsulukiani.

Following this, Tea Tsulukiani repeated her initial question to Mamuka Kurasvhili, emphasizing that one of his direct duties as a peacekeeper was also to care for the civilian population. Therefore, since he was on the ground, didn’t he have a "valuable opportunity" to see the situation firsthand? To this, Kurasvhili responded that after August 1, he was no longer able to move around Tskhinvali and therefore did not have that opportunity. He explained that he provided detailed information to the Joint Staff.

Then, Tea Tsulukiani asked Kurasvhili:

"General, when did you first report that civilians might need to be rescued, that the situation was deteriorating? On which day did you communicate this?" Tsulukiani asked Kurasvhili.

In response, Mamuka Kurasvhili stated:

"What do you mean, 'to be rescued,' Madam Tea?! We tried to avoid the conflict until the last moment. I don’t understand what you are asking me! What do you want, after all?! What are you asking?!" Kurasvhili said.

Commission member Aleksandre Tabatadze reacted to Kurasvhili’s statement.

"Not 'What do you want, after all,' but listen for a minute! Lower your tone a bit… No one here is inferior or… They are asking you something else. You are responsible for this. That is exactly why you had a peacekeeping mission—to protect the civilians there. When you reported that such a situation had developed, that the opposing side was evacuating people—that is an alarming situation. Two of our soldiers were killed. You were required to act urgently. If no response was received from higher-ups, you should tell us that. I know that you faced certain resistance and conflicts over this," Tabatadze told Kurasvhili.

Additionally, the commission chair reminded the general that they should agree on the rules of conduct.

"I don’t think you should be speaking in the tone you are using. Let’s all behave according to the ranks we hold," Tsulukiani told Kurasvhili, to which he responded, "I’m listening. What did I do wrong?!"

"I’ll put it in simple terms—yesterday, as the commission chair, I let a lot of things slide. I let the tone slide! I let the shouting slide! I let a lot of things slide! So now, let’s all 'wise up' together, and I do not want to see you raising your voice again! If you came here in uniform, respect the uniform first and foremost. Understood?! I will now ask my question, and you will answer. You are being asked questions here. Do not think for a second—excuse me, dear members—but do not think that anyone here is any less of a man than you! Period!" Tsulukiani told Kurasvhili.

She also asked him whether he had spoken with anyone about the mixed families in Tskhinvali. Kurasvhili replied that he had spoken with "General Gogava."

"When you came in here, did he give you permission to blame everything on me, or how does this work? You have done so much that you and another officer are forcing me to talk to you differently. I didn’t want to, God is my witness. I see we will need to spend a lot of time on you, so those of you who have been through war, control your nerves better than I do," Tsulukiani told him.