There is no "South Ossetian" or Abkhazian republic - such entities do not exist, and therefore, we are not interested in what statements the de facto representatives of the occupied territories make, - this is how Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze responded to a question about the response of the so-called South Ossetia to his statement regarding the start of the August 2008 war.

Kobakhidze told a journalist that both the occupation and recognition followed what "his political party" was doing.

“As for my statement, I repeated what your party wrote in the Council of Europe resolution. The resolution clearly states that the conflict escalated into a phase of large-scale hostilities after your party bombed Tskhinvali without warning. This is written in the Council of Europe resolution, which I repeated. Your party signed all of this in 2008, when days had passed since the end of the war. Therefore, ask your party why they did this in the first place, why they then gave a confession to the Council of Europe and why they signed the Council of Europe resolution together with the entire European community, where it was directly stated that the conflict escalated into a phase of large-scale hostilities, that is, a war, after your party bombed Tskhinvali without warning, and this was followed by a Russian response. The resolution directly talks about Russia’s response and your party signed it.

If anyone provided an argument, "it was when your party signed the Council of Europe resolution, where they admitted that they had escalated the conflict into a war," Kobakhidze said in response to a question.

Kobakhidze also said today that the start of hostilities was preceded by a thousand provocative actions, which provided the Russian Federation with a pretext to take steps against Georgia's national interests.

"These included holding alternative separatist elections in the Tskhinvali region, renaming the Kodori Gorge Upper Abkhazia. They adopted a law and issued a presidential decree, thereby creating an alternative de facto separatist government. This was a series of steps that were later crowned with what was written in the Council of Europe resolution," Irakli Kobakhidze said.