Many Ossetians spoke with anger about the Georgian troops who had battled their way into Tskhinvali, only to be driven back by the Russians.
"They were the closest to us before the war, and now they are the most frightening enemy," said Evelina Kulumbekova, 49, who holed up in the basement of her apartment building during the fighting. "It feels like your own brother has cut off your head."
The question of how many people died here is significant in part because Moscow has used the shocking death toll to justify its overwhelming military response. Russia sent troops pouring over the border, unleashed airstrikes and seized control of wide chunks of Georgia outside South Ossetia and another breakaway republic, Abkhazia, shutting down the country's main road and severing transportation links between the capital and the Black Sea coast.
The Kremlin has come out heavily in support of independence for Georgia's breakaway republics, a move that would redraw the borders of the post-Soviet Caucasus region. Critics accuse Russia of trying to engineer a de facto annexation of the neighboring lands, a charge Moscow firmly denies.
Russia's relationship with the West has abruptly soured with the military incursion. The Bush administration was infuriated, and post-Soviet politics were reshaped by a new understanding of the threat Russia may pose to its Western-leaning neighbors.
Russian leaders say the campaign was necessary to protect the people of South Ossetia, who feel historical kinship with Russia stretching back to czarist times. South Ossetians rebelled against Georgian rule shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and have been largely autonomous since then.
"After what happened, it should be clear that they should have self-determination," Konstantin Zatulin, the first deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma's committee for the Commonwealth of Independent States said on Sunday. "The reality is that for 15 years, at least, South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been independent, in fact."
Seated in a conference room in the main government building of South Ossetia, Zatulin said he was in charge of a $100-million Russian initiative to rebuild a section of Tskhinvali. The project, he said, would create a "Moscow zone" in the city.
"Russia is not annexing. Russia is not invading," he said. "It's not true. The goal of Russia is peace in the Caucasus."
