“International Criminal Court General Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has requested a court sanction on beginning an official investigation into the events of over seven years ago after the attack by military forces from [former Georgian President] Mikheil Saakashvili on the peaceful [capital city] of Tskhinvali and on Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia,” the department of information said in a statement.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said that “hundreds of requests from those who suffered, as well as from the family members of those killed in South Ossetia” had been sent to The Hague over the last few years.
South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia back in the 1990s.
Moscow recognized South Ossetia, alongside Abkhazia, another Georgian breakaway region, as an independent state in August 2008 following an armed conflict with Tbilisi.
The war severed diplomatic relations between Russia and Georgia and prompted Tbilisi to declare the partially recognized states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia "occupied" Georgian territories.
