MOSCOW. Aug 8 (Interfax) - Russia lost many aircraft on the days of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict in August 2008 because of poor intelligence, Sergei Ivanov, the Russian Presidential Representative for Environmental Protection, Ecology and Transport, who was the Deputy Prime Minister supervising the defense sector in 2008 and the Defense Minister before that, said.
"There were some absurdities, so to say, and we lost many aircraft," Ivanov told the newspaper Kommersant in an interview on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict.
Asked why that happened, Ivanov said, "because of bad intelligence. I can give a concrete answer to your question."
According to Ivanov, the requirement he made as the defense minister that no conscripts be involved in a military conflict with Georgia, which was included in the General Staff's action plan, was not fulfilled. "The plan did not include a single conscript. It was my requirement as the defense minister," Ivanov said.
He gave a negative answer to the question whether his requirement was fulfilled. "No. I was no longer the defense minister at the moment. It took time to find the plan, retrieve it from the safe box, and study it, but they had to ask quickly, and I admit that [the requirement] was not met," he said.
"Our troops retained control of the Roksky pass and tunnel and quickly deployed near Tbilisi. The hostilities stopped then," Ivanov said.
As to why Tbilisi was not taken over, Ivanov said, "because we did not plan to do so. Why? That would have made no political sense. No military sense either."
"It was necessary to deal a military blow to the Georgian army to prevent it from repeating reckless actions in the foreseeable future. Saakashvili was still in office. There was no guarantee that this idiot, pardon me, would not act recklessly again. If he had strength to do so," Ivanov said.
Ivanov described as "wild speculations" the claims that the Ossetians downed some of the Russian planes. "I do not think so, I believe these are wild speculations. It takes air defense systems to down a fighter or a Tu-22, and, as far as I know, South Ossetia had no air defense. Even if they had a number of MANPADS, they would have been unable to down a Tu-22 flying at a high altitude, this is impossible," Ivanov said.
He said he "deeply regretted" the difficulties experienced by Russian troops with finding their bearings in South Ossetia and, partially, in Georgia.
That happened because Russian troops were not using the available Glonass services, Ivanov said.
"I asked our military why they were not using Glonass. The military told me unofficially that the engaged troops were equipped with Glonass systems but commanders did not dare to give those systems to servicemen. They were afraid the expensive systems would be lost or damaged," he said.
"This is what I was told; I am not sure it was so, as I did not bear witness, yet I know that Glonass receivers were stored in weapon depots of some military units to prevent that property from being lost. This is silly. But I cannot tell you whether it was true or not," Ivanov said.
Speaking of the Russian army's performance in general at that time, Ivanov said, "despite some shortcomings [...] there were positive results, such as high morale and absolute confidence that they were doing right. [...] I am not a fan of pathos but they did well and quickly achieved results, which discouraged the Georgian administration from taking reckless military moves for a long time, I would not say forever," he said.