Russia fraudulently exaggerated Ossetia casualties

Guardian:

Deliberate attempts by the Russian government to exaggerate the number of people killed in the South Ossetia conflict are provoking revenge attacks on Georgian villagers in the republic, a human rights group claimed yesterday.

Anna Neistat of Human Rights Watch, who is leading a team investigating the damage in South Ossetia, told the Guardian that Russian estimates of 2,000 dead were "suspicious".

"Our findings so far do not in any way confirm the Russian statistics." she said. "On the contrary, they suggest the numbers are exaggerated."

...

Neistat said doctors at Tskhinvali hospital gave figures that 273 wounded had been treated there and 44 dead had been brought to the city morgue. "By day five of a conflict one expects that there is some kind of list of the dead and injured. But here there is no information. Nothing."

As I have argued before the evidence of genocide is nonexistent by Georgian forces. What is apparent is that the Russian exaggeration has resulted in ethnic cleansing of Georgians by its forces and the thugs it has been supporting in South Ossetia. The pretext for this war is becoming all the more apparent to those who have not been subjected to the Russian propaganda used to justify their aggression.