Heavy fighting erupted late on August 7 in the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili calling for the full mobilization of the country's armed forces. Russia has threatened to retaliate amid growing fears of a full-scale war.

RFE/RL's Russian Service discussed the situation with Moscow-based columnist and specialist on former Soviet countries Vadim Dubnov; Koba Liklikadze, a political scientist and a commentator for RFE/RL's Georgian Service; and political scientist Kosta Kochiyev, head of the South Ossetian NGO Law is Higher than the Authorities.

RFE/RL: Who is to blame for the rising tensions in South Ossetia?

Vadim Dubnov: Both sides [Georgia and South Ossetia] have reason to be interested in maintaining the tensions. Tskhinvali needs to maintain the unstable situation in order to convince Moscow that distancing itself would be fraught with danger. Tbilisi wants to prove that the framework of the Joint Control Commission has turned into a complete farce. Everything that is happening confirms this.

Therefore they are both achieving their goals -- and both are being quite cunning at it, since they are counting on the fact that Moscow will not allow a full-blown war to erupt. But no, that calculation may prove to be mistaken because Moscow is also not in a position to deal with either side because now a confrontation is developing between the South Ossetia peacekeepers and Moscow that had not been previously observed in this form.

RFE/RL: It seems that Tbilisi can't make up its mind whether to launch a full-scale military operation to reintegrate South Ossetia by force.

Dubnov: I don't think Georgia has any such plans. I am still somewhat optimistic and think that both sides will pull back. Neither Tbilisi nor Tskhinvali want a real war.

RFE/RL: The volunteers who are arriving in South Ossetia from the Russian republic of North Ossetia and from Russia -- is this a serious force?

Dubnov: Various people are arriving from North Ossetia, including some with real military experience who went through [the fighting in] 1992 and other events. But I don't think that they will really provide much help. It is more of an act of solidarity.

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RFE/RL: Are they speaking in Tbilisi about a large-scale military operation to reintegrate South Ossetia with the rest of the country or is such a plan being denied?

Koba Liklikadze: No, they are not talking about such a thing. Temur Iakobashvili, the minister for reintegration, said that there will not be a large-scale military operation and that Georgia will respond to any provocation adequately, but with restraint. The Georgian authorities say there will be no large-scale operation.

In fact, it is hard to imagine a major military operation against Tskhinvali because it is a very small, very narrow gorge and a tiny city. Nonetheless, I do not think the matter will get to the level of military action. For now things will remain in the realm of a diplomatic war.

RFE/RL: What is the political sense of what is happening? Why is the situation coming to a head?

Liklikadze: The official opinion is that everything began after the NATO summit in Bucharest [in April], when the door was opened to Georgia and Ukraine -- that is, it was said that they can become members of NATO. I think that this is a diplomatic war, and part of it is the ongoing military operation.

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RFE/RL: Who is to blame for the situation in South Ossetia?

Kosta Kochiyev: This is what Georgia has been striving for for a long time. They have been doing everything to achieve this. Their policies for several centuries boil down to the policy of a mono-ethnic state and pushing Ossetians out of Ossetia.

RFE/RL: Do you think there are no political means for regulating this conflict?

Kochiyev: There is a political way to regulate this conflict. It is an international court for the crimes against humanity that Georgia has committed beginning in the 1920s and continuing until the present day.