"Interesting, certainly, but how close was the exercise to the actual op? Were the same forces involved?"
Given it was forces of the North Caucasus Military District that were involved in Caucasus 2008, then yes. The US and Georgians later claimed these forces were bolstered by other Russian units.
The Russians did not make a secret of the exercise either when it happened or what its objectives were. The Russian Ministry of Defence actually announced in a press release in July (
News details), stating "The main goal of the exercise is to estimate the ability of military command to joint actions in conditions of terrorist threat in the South of Russia. In view of escalation of the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-Ossetic conflicts, during the exercise questions of participation in special operations on peace enforcement in zones of confrontations will be fulfilled."
Given that those conflicts have been identified as major threats to Russian security, it would have been normal for its forces to train for these events (just as any other military would train for potential conflicts or deployments without necessary having to actually undertake them). It might be that Russian troops were in the right place at the right time, rather than a pre-planned invasion as some have suggested.