On 24 August, in an interview broadcast by Imedi television, the chairman of the Georgian parliament's Defense and Security Committee, Givi Targamadze, said that Russian military was prepared to launch a strike into Georgian territory, but the raid was preempted by Saakashvili's decision on 19 August to withdraw Georgian forces from strategic positions in South Ossetia. Targamadze said the Georgian government possessed secretly recorded video of Russian military preparations near the Georgian border.
