'We were surprised by footage of bombed Gori – we were there and saw nothing like that' – says RT correspondent Mikhail Lebedev who has just returned from the conflict zone and witnessed the events.

There are no winners in the South Ossetian war, believes Aleksandr Nikitin, president of the Russian Political Science Association.

By launching an offensive on its breakaway republic of South Ossetia, Georgia has decreased chances of reclaiming the territory, says Dmitry Babich, a political analyst from Russia Profile magazine.