Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili argues in an op-ed column in Monday's Wall Street Journal that Russia picked the fight with Georgia in South Ossetia to crush Georgia's pro-Western democracy.

"The Kremlin designed this war," Saakashvili writes.

He also argues that the conflict is about "the future of freedom in Europe."

If Russia succeeds, Saakashvili says, it would mark the end of Western influence on any of the former Soviet republics.

"It is clear that Russia's current leadership is bent on restoring a neocolonial form of control over the entire space once governed by Moscow," he writes.

Georgian president: Moscow picked fight - CNN.com