An independent report commissioned by the European Union says that both Georgia and Russia bear responsibility for starting last August's five-day war.

The EU committee, led by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, said both sides had broken international humanitarian law. The report concludes that Georgia started the war by shelling Tskhinvali, capital of the breakway region of South Ossetia, but that Moscow's military response was beyond reasonable limits and violated international law.

According to the report, the war followed several months of provocation by the Russian authorities and Moscow fuelled separatist tendencies in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The committee says it found evidence of ethnic cleansing against ethnic Georgians living in the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Hundreds of people died in the five-day war and tens of thousands fled their homes.