As if we need any more proof that the South Ossetian conflict was expected and welcomed by Russia, Radio Free Europe has an article in which a freelance reporter with Reuters notices an odd build-up of Russian journalists in Tskhinvali before the outbreak of hostilities:
Said Tsarnayev stumbled into a war.
A Chechen freelance photographer with the Reuters news agency, Tsarnayev arrived in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, during the day on August 7. Traveling together with a colleague, Tsarnayev said he planned to take photographs of the environment and natural surroundings in the area for a project he was working on.
Once in Tskhinvali, he discovered a virtual army of Russian journalists at his hotel.
Speaking to RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service, Tsarnayev, a resident of the Chechen capital, Grozny, said the Moscow-based reporters had been sent from various Russian media outlets days earlier, and were preparing to cover something big.
"At the hotel we discovered that there were already 48 Russian journalists there. Together with us, there were 50 people," Tsarnayev said. "I was the only one representing a foreign news agency. The rest were from Russian media and they arrived three days before we did, as if they knew that something was going to happen. Earlier at the border crossing, we met one man who was taking his wife and children from Tskhinvali."
Late that night, armed conflict broke out between Russia and Georgia.
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