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A minister in the Georgian government told a public meeting this week that "at least" three members of Heidi Tagliavini's team which examined the events before and during the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia were being paid by the Russian state, reports the Georgian Messenger.

Temur Iakobashvili said that "At least three of its analysts were getting salaries directly from Russia’s [state gas monopoly] Gazprom."

He also said that: "First of all the report doesn’t say that Georgia started the war. You can read it as many times as you wish, but it doesn’t say that."

In fact, in paragraph 14, on page 19 of the first volume of the report it states: "Open hostilities began with a large-scale Georgian military operation against the town of Tskhinvali and the surrounding areas, launched in the night of 7 to 8 August 2008. Operations started with a massive Georgian artillery attack. At the very outset of the operation the Commander of the Georgian contingent to the Joint Peacekeeping Forces (JPKF), Brigadier General Mamuka Kurashvili, stated that the operation was aimed at restoring the constitutional order in the territory of South Ossetia. Somewhat later the Georgian side refuted Mamuka Kurashvili’s statement as unauthorised and invoked the countering of an alleged Russian invasion as justification of the operation."

The report, of course, makes clear that it is wrong to regard that shelling as the start of the conflict, as opposed to the start of the five days of war.