Timeline
Tensions had been escalating through the year of 2008, but the countdown to the open hostilities began with a bombing of a Georgian police car near the Eredvi village east of Tskhinvali, with five policemen wounded by the blast. According to one source, the bombing happened on the 31st of July, another gives the date of August the 1st. A chain of reactions and counter-reactions followed.
Read more about this topic: Timeline Of The 2008 South Ossetia War, Military Conflict