It's been nearly a year after their war... and now Russia and Georgia are locked in a battle of words and images - over how the world will remember the conflict.

Georgia is pushing its version of the war but more quietly than Russia.

Today, officials presented a report that contends Russia started the war by sending in military convoys after weeks of minor clashes between forces.

Temur Yakobashvili, Georgian Minister for Integration,said:
"The most important conclusion of the report is that we are seeing the attempts of the Russian Federation to undermine the Georgian statehood by using proxy separatists and separatism as a tool against the Georgian state. I think that this report will reveal that during all these years Georgia never had an internal conflict but that it rather had an external conflict with the Russian Federation."

Georgia's official commemorations begin at midnight, with the lighting of a memorial bonfire at the medieval citadel in Gori.

The midnight lighting also reflects Georgia's claim that the war began early August 7th, 2008, with the alleged entry of a Russian military convoy into South Ossetia.

However, Russia marks August 8th as the war's start, when South Ossetia's capital came under a massive Georgian artillery barrage, which Georgia says it launched to repel the advancing Russians.

EBRU NEWS