Russia's five-day operation in Georgia followed Tbilisi's August 8 ground and air attack against South Ossetia, which Russia later recognized as an independent state.
"We delivered airstrikes at an airfield located 25 kilometers south of Tbilisi and a pinpointed airstrike at an aircraft-manufacturing plant in Tbilisi, which local residents could not even feel," Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, a deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, told a news briefing with over 100 foreign ambassadors and military attaches in Moscow.
The general said the Russian military decided to strike these facilities in order to prevent further attacks by Georgian aircraft against Russian peacekeeping positions.
Russia said on September 3 that 71 Russian peacekeepers were killed and 340 wounded during Georgia's attack on South Ossetia.
