According to confidential reports made by the U.S. Embassy in Georgia, August 2008, the war between Georgia and Russia was first started by Moscow. The reports were part of the massive Wikileaks dump of the other day and were reprinted in the Financial newspaper based in Tbilisi. The reports also noted that the Millennium Challenge Grant financed highway between Tbilisi and Samtakhe-Javakhk was used to ferry out refugees, foreigners and diplomats from the war zone. One of the reports also deals with details of the relations between RA Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandian and the Georgian foreign Minister. On August 15, Georgian FM Tkeshelashvili refused to meet with Nalbandian when his plane made a transit stop in Yerevan. The foreign minister later stated that he had been directed to immediately return to Georgia. In another report, the Armenian Ambassador   urged Georgian officials to widely publicize that the Russian Air sorties striking inside Georgia have not emanated from Russian air bases in Armenia. Another report deals with shipments being held up from entering Armenia: “Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibjanian — acting on behalf of the vacationing foreign minister — urgently called in Charge d’Affaires first thing the morning of August 11 to solicit assistance in freeing cargo shipments which he said Georgian authorities were holding up. He said that some 30 railroad cars of grain, diesel fuel, and kerosene (jet fuel), were being held up by Georgian officials at the Georgian-Armenian border crossing point of Sadakhlo-Bagratashen, and an unspecified volume of cargo was likewise being held up at or near the port of Poti. The implication was that Georgian authorities were at least considering commandeering these kinds of critical staple goods for Georgian national needs during the crisis. Gharabjanian asked for U.S. help in persuading Georgian authorities to allow Armenian-bound shipments to pass freely onward to Armenia. Armenian authorities are quite concerned about meeting their own critical food and fuel needs in the event of a protracted crisis in Georgia, given that a majority of Armenia’s food and fuel consumption is imported via Georgia. Gharibjanian noted that Armenia could face serious shortages, especially in diesel fuel, jet fuel, natural gas, grain, and sugar. He noted that natural gas imports via the Russia-Georgia-Armenia natural gas pipeline have already been interrupted (see paragraph 4), and Armenia is functioning off of its stored natural gas reserves. (NOTE: Post has learned from prior natural gas supply scares that Armenia’s reserve storage capacity contains sufficient gas to supply Armenia’s normal consumption for anywhere from three to six weeks, depending on season. Post is checking with local experts to obtain updated estimates, based on how close to capacity the Armenian reserves were when the current crisis started and current consumption estimates.”