( CNN ) -- Historical tensions and overreaction on the part of both Russia and Georgia contributed to a five-day conflict between the two in 2008 , a European Union fact-finding mission concluded in a report released Wednesday . South Ossetian mourners at the grave of a relative killed in the conflict on the first anniversary in August 2009 . `` The conflict is rooted in a profusion of causes comprising different layers in time and actions combined , '' said the report from the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia . `` While it is possible to identify the authorship of some important events and decisions marking its course , there is no way to assign overall responsibility for the conflict to one side alone . They have all failed , and it should be their responsibility to make good for it . '' Georgia launched a campaign against South Ossetia , a Russian-backed separatist Georgian territory , on August 7 , 2008 . The following day , Russian tanks , troops and armored vehicles poured into South Ossetia and another Russian-backed breakaway Georgian territory , Abkhazia , advancing into Georgian cities outside the rebel regions . A total of about 850 people were killed on all sides , the report said , and untold numbers of others were wounded or went missing . About 100,000 civilians fled their homes , and about 35,000 have been unable to return . `` The fighting did not end the political conflict , nor were any of the issues that lay beneath it resolved , '' the report said . `` Tensions still continue . The political situation after the end of fighting turned out to be no easier and in some respects even more difficult than before . '' Russia and Georgia each blamed the other for starting the conflict , and accused each other of a variety of offenses leading up to and during the fighting , including ethnic cleansing . Moscow has since recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent regions . But relations between Georgia and Russia are at an `` all-time low , '' the report notes . After five days of fighting , a peace deal was brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy , acting on behalf of the EU . An implementation effort followed on September 8 . The report noted that the actions `` stood in contrast to the failure of the international community , including the U.N. Security Council , to act swiftly and resolutely enough in order to control the ever-mounting tensions prior ( to ) the outbreak of armed conflict . '' Georgian armed forces shelled the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali the night of August 7 . While that action was seen as the start of the armed conflict , `` it was only the culminating point of a long period of increasing tensions , provocations and incidents , '' the fact-finding report said . `` Indeed , the conflict has deep roots in the history of the region , in peoples ' national traditions and aspirations as well as in age-old perceptions or rather misperceptions of each other , which were never mended and sometimes exploited . '' Any evaluation of the conflict should take that into account , along with mounting tensions in the months and weeks leading up to it , the report said , as well as `` years of provocations , mutual accusations , military and political threats and acts of violence both inside and outside the conflict zone . `` It has to consider , too , the impact of a great power 's coercive politics and diplomacy against a small and insubordinate neighbor , together with the small neighbour 's penchant for overplaying its hand and acting in the heat of the moment without careful consideration of the final outcome , not to mention its fear that it might permanently lose important parts of its territory through creeping annexation , '' the report said . The fact-finding mission was established in December by the EU to investigate the conflict . It was headed by Heidi Tagliavini , a former United Nations special representative for Georgia . The EU said in a statement it welcomed the report and hopes its findings can contribute to future international efforts at `` preventive diplomacy . ''
Report : A total of about 850 people were killed on all sides in five-day conflict . Score: 7 Report : `` No way to assign overall responsibility for the conflict to one side alone '' Russia and Georgia each blamed the other for starting the conflict .