Russian-backed leaders in South Ossetia have said that 2,100 people died in fighting in Tskhinvali and nearby villages. But a doctor at the city’s main hospital, the only one open during the battles that began late on Aug. 7, said the facility recorded just 40 deaths.

That explanation, that Russians were saving South Ossetians from total annihilation, undergirded Moscow’s rationale for the invasion.

A senior member of Russia’s parliament, Konstantin Zatulin also said that the Russian government intended to spend some $100 million on building a “Moscow district” in the city (Tskhinvali, Georgia); he did not explain what that would entail.

Georgia’s leadership maintains the war was launched by the Kremlin because of longstanding resentment about the former Soviet republic’s close ties with the West.

Of course it’s not like they haven’t lied before.