14.01.2018

‘’Go **** yourselves’’ he shouted as they approached, and the US-backed Georgian troops came to a halt.

The Russo-Georgian war of 2008 is reaching its 10-year anniversary and as reflections are made by Western pundits about why Mikheil Saakashvili couldn’t achieve his goals through the aggressive campaign against South Ossetia, these reflections leave a very large shadow, one that has practically hidden the individual accounts of ordinary soldiers that were so suddenly caught in the five-day war.

One such account comes in the form of Bato Dashidorzhiev, a Russian soldier once adamant to defend a Russian checkpoint in Gori from an advancing regiment of Georgian troops. Everything known about him come from witness reports and news about him circulated on social networks during the height of the conflict.

8th of August 2008. As the already-weakened Georgian army regrouped on the outskirts of Gori and planned for a recapture of the city, they witnessed a short, lone Buryat standing in their line of interest with a Pecheneg that looked as large as himself.

During the tense approach, Dashidorzhiev was first to greet the column and greet them he did, albeit in a very different sense of the word. Asking him to step aside for their passage, Dashidorzhiev refused and spoke words that no regular person would’ve dared to during a conflict that a large part of the world had its eyes on.

‘’Go **** yourselves’’ he fearlessly shouted as they approached.

Another representative of the Georgian column tried to speak to him, but once again he denied any request and asked them to wait.

While in the wait for his fellow soldiers, he stood in their line of passage and blocked all of the military vehicles from passing before a dialogue could be started between the commanding officers on both sides.

As a conclusion to this frightening display of confidence, the Georgian convoy retreated from the checkpoint.

While a lot of questions were asked about the encounter and who this unidentified man was as he appeared in the circulating pictures, his identity was discovered days later but bundled together with graver news: Bato Dashidorzhiev had died in South Ossetia days after the picture was taken.

Because of this heroic display, various letters were sent to President Putin, urging him to posthumously award Dashidorzhiev ‘’A hero of Russia’’. One such letter was sent by Chuluunzhav Ayang, a citizen of Mongolia, from which the text under the picture gained significant attention.

‘’Russians – There is no need for 300 of them’’

His sister, Tuyana Dashidorzhieva, is a World Champion archer and silver medallist at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Dennis Vance is a writer and blogger based in Moscow, Russia. He started the Kremlinology blog in 2016 and writes about Russian affairs, geopolitics and everything in between.

Sources:

Русский дух – неизвестные страницы истории