1.1 Background on South Ossetia

South Ossetia is located along Georgia's northern frontier in the Caucasus Mountains, bordering North Ossetia, a republic of the Russian Federation. The region is surrounded to the south, east, and west by undisputed Georgian territories. Prior to the August 2008 conflict, South Ossetia's population consisted of ethnic Ossetians and Georgians and numbered some 70,000 people, 20 to 30 percent of whom were ethnic Georgians.[2] South Osseti a's capital, Tskhinvali, had a population of about 30,000. A number of villages in South Ossetia were overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Georgians, principally in three valleys: Didi Liakhvi (directly north of Tskhinvali and including Kekhvi, Kurta, Zemo Achabeti, Kvemo Achabeti, and Tamarasheni);[3] Patara Liakhvi (northeast of Tskhinvali and including Eredvi, Vanati, Beloti, Prisi, Satskheneti, Atsriskhevi, Argvitsi, Berula, and Disevi); and Froni (west of Tskhinvali and including Avnevi, Nuli, and Tighva). A large part of the Akhalgori district was also overwhelmingly Georgian-populated.[4] With a handful of exceptions in the west of South Ossetia, villages inhabited mainly or exclusively by ethnic Georgians were administered by Tbilisi, while Tskhinvali and Ossetian-inhabited villages were under the administration of the de facto South Ossetian authorities.

1991-92 Conflict in South Ossetia

During the Soviet era, South Ossetia was an autonomous oblast, or region, of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. It sought greater autonomy from Tbilisi in the period before the breakup of the Soviet Union. In autumn 1990 South Ossetia proclaimed full sovereignty within the USSR and boycotted the election that brought the political party of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a Georgian nationalist, to power in Georgia. Gamsakhurdia's government responded fiercely to those developments and abolished the autonomous oblast status of South Ossetia in December 1990,[5] leading to increased tensions and armed conflict in 1991-92. Direct military confrontation between South Ossetian separatists and Georgian police and paramilitaries started in January 1991, leading to a year of skirmishes and guerrilla warfare with sporadic Russian involvement overwhelmingly in support of the separatists. The conflict resulted in some 1,000 dead, 100 missing, extensive destruction of property and infrastructure, as well as thousands of displaced people, including ethnic Georgians from South Ossetia and ethnic Ossetians from other parts of Georgia.[6]

(Another conflict in Georgia was fought in the early 1990s in Abkhazia, a former Autonomous Republic of Soviet Georgia located in northwestern Georgia between the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains. The 1992-93 military confrontation there led to some 8,000 deaths, 18,000 wounded, and the forced displacement of over 200,000 ethnic Georgians.[7])

The first conflict in South Ossetia culminated in the region's de facto secession from Georgia in 1992. On June 24, 1992, in the Russian city of Sochi, Russian and Georgian leaders Boris Yeltsin and Eduard Shevardnadze signed an agreement that brought about a ceasefire.[8] The Sochi Agreement established the Joint Control Commission (JCC), a body for negotiations composed of Georgian, Russian, North Ossetian, and South Ossetian representatives, and the Joint Peacekeeping Forces (JPKFs), a trilateral peacekeeping force with Georgian, Russian, and Ossetian units.[9] These units operated under a joint command, the JPKF commander being nominated by the Russian Ministry of Defence and appointed by the JCC. Battalion commanders were directly appointed by each side. Although the JPKF were meant as a joint force, in reality they were three separate battalions, deployed in different locations andmore loyal to their respective sides than to the JPKF commander.

2003-06: New Leadership in Georgia, New Agenda for Recovering South Ossetia

The peacekeeping and conflict settlement process evolved slowly over the years, with lengthy periods of inactivity. For 12 years there was no military confrontation. After his election in January 2004, President Mikheil Saakashvili made the restoration of Georgia's territorial integrity one of his top priorities. Tbilisi's initial approach to recovering South Ossetia was to simultaneously launch a large-scale anti-smuggling operation, aimed at undermining the major source of income for the de facto South Ossetian leadership, as well as a humanitarian aid "offensive" in an attempt to win the loyalty of Ossetians.[10] The anti-smuggling operation was focused primarily on closing a wholesale market near Tskhinvali, a hub for goods smuggled from Russia that entered Georgia's internal markets without proper customs clearance.[11] Saakashvili's government also initiated economic and cultural projects, including an Ossetian-language television station, pensions, free fertilizer, and humanitarian aid.[12]

In the late 1990s the Russian government began proactively to offer to residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia Russian citizenship and to facilitate their acquisition of Russian passports for foreign travel; by the end of 2007, according to the South Ossetian authorities, some 97 percent of residents of South Ossetia had obtained Russian passports.[13] As Russia imposed a visa regime with Georgia in 2000, Russian passports allowed Ossetians and Abkhaz to cross freely into Russia and entitled them to Russian pensions and other social benefits.[14]

2004 spike in tensions

As part of the anti-smuggling campaign, in May 2004 several Georgian Ministry of Interior units landed by helicopter in the three Gori district villages adjacent to the South Ossetian administrative border, and one Tbilisi-administered village inside South Ossetia. The units proceeded to set up roadblocks that restricted traffic from South Ossetia. This move led to renewed hostilities in the following months that resulted in dozens of casualties, but stopped short of warfare.[15] The parties of the JCC agreed on a new ceasefire in August 2004.

Following the August 2004 crisis, the security situation in South Ossetia remained tense, with frequent exchanges of fire between the sides that occasionally resulted in deaths, and increased the rate of crime.[16] In another bid to alter the status quo peacefully, in late 2006 the Georgian government began strongly supporting an alternative South Ossetian administration led by Dmitry Sanakoev.[17] Following parallel presidential elections in November 2006, two competing governments existed in South Ossetia: the secessionist de facto government headed by Eduard Kokoity in Tskhinvali and a pro-Tbilisi government headed by Sanakoev, based in Kurta, an ethnic Georgian village five kilometers from Tskhinvali.[18] The Sanakoev administration maintained authority over the ethnic Georgian villages and a large part of the Akhalgori district of South Ossetia, while Tskhinvali administered the rest of South Ossetia.

Instability and occasional skirmishes persisted,[19] and negotiations between Tbilisi and Tskhinvali within the JCC framework stalled. Georgia pushed for a change in the JCC format, as it saw the JCC as a "three against one" arrangement: Tbilisi called for limiting Russia's role and insisted on participation of the European Union, United States, and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in the talks.[20] Tskhinvali opposed any format change and instead pushed for a formal agreement on the non-use of force, with strong Russian support.[21] Russia, which has considered itself a guarantor of stability in the region, since August 2004 also began to emphasize an obligation to protect the large number of Ossetians to whom it had given Russian passports.[22]

2006-08: Tensions Rise between Russia and Georgia

An increasingly strained relationship between Georgia and Russia compounded rising tensions between Tskhinvali and Tbilisi. The relationship between Moscow and Tbilisi was completely severed in September 2006 when Russia, in response to Georgia's detention of four alleged Russian spies, halted all air, land, and sea traffic with the country, and began a widespread crackdown on ethnic Georgians. During this time, Russia expelled more than 2,300 Georgians from Russia.[23]

By April 2008 communication between Russia and Georgia was being restored, but Russia, angered by Western countries' recognition of Kosovo's independence in February 2008 and by Georgia's continued efforts to join NATO, moved to deepen its cooperation with the breakaway administrations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.[24] Georgia responded by blocking further negotiations over Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization.[25] Georgian use of unmanned reconnaissance drones in the airspace above the breakaway republics and the downing of one such drone by a Russian airplane on April 20 strained the relationship further.[26]

The Lead-up to the August 2008 War

In the months preceding the August war, tensions in South Ossetia steadily escalated as Georgian and South Ossetian forces engaged in violent attacks and mutual recriminations. In July Georgian forces hit nine residential homes in Tskhinvali and a nearby village with artillery fire, resulting in two dead and 11 wounded. Georgia said it had been forced to return fire after an attack. In response, South Ossetia announced a general mobilization, but halted it within hours when Georgian forces ceased firing.[27] A week later, Russia confirmed Georgian allegations that four Russian air force jets had conducted overflights over Tskhinvali in violation of Georgia's airspace, a move that caused Georgia to recall its ambassador to Russia. Russia stated that the overflights had been necessary to "cool hot heads in Tbilisi" and prevent attempts to settle the dispute over South Ossetia through military means.[28]

Military exercises conducted by both sides also contributed to rising tensions. On July 15, the Fourth Infantry Brigade of the Georgian Army conducted an exercise near Tbilisi with US forces, called "Immediate Response 2008."[29] On the same day, the Russian military launched "Caucasus 2008," a military exercise involving 8,000 troops not far from the Roki tunnel connecting Russia and South Ossetia. While the main stated goal of the exercise was to evaluate capacity for joint operations in connection with the terrorist threat in southern Russia, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that, in connection with the deteriorating situation in Georgia, it would also address issues of peace enforcement in conflict zones.[30] Upon completing its military exercise, Georgia concentrated its entire artillery brigade in the city of Gori, just 30 kilometers from Tskhinvali.[31]

Toward the end of July, violent skirmishes between Georgian and South Ossetian forces became more frequent. On July 29, Georgian and South Ossetian each accused the other of firing on the other side. On August 1, several Georgian police officers were injured in a bomb attack in South Ossetia.[32] Later that day snipers shot and killed six South Ossetian police officers. The next morning automatic weapon and mortar fire resumed between the southwest side of Tskhinvali and the Georgian settlement of Zemo Nikozi.[33] The renewed violence prompted several hundred civilians, mostly women and children, to evacuate to Russia.[34]

Over the next few days, the sides exchanged fire, but apparently without casualties. Tbilisi continued to amass forces close to the South Ossetia administrative border. According to some accounts, by the morning of August 7 there were 12,000 Georgian troops and 75 tanks and armored personnel carriers gathered not far from the South Ossetian border.[35]

Fighting intensified toward the evening on August 6 and throughout August 7. Georgian authorities claim that its forces opened fire in response to the Ossetian side firing mortars on villages inhabited by ethnic Georgians. The de facto South Ossetian authorities claim that Georgian forces were trying to capture a strategic hill overlooking a road connecting Tskhinvali and several Ossetian villages.[36] On the evening on August 7 President Saakashvili announced a unilateral ceasefire.[37] Hours later, however, he rescinded the ceasefire, citing continued Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages.[38]

The Fighting and Immediate Political Aftermath

Late in the evening of August 7, Georgian forces initiated massive shelling of Tskhinvali and surrounding villages in an attack that is widely considered the start of the war. The Georgian government says its forces launched the attack to suppress firing positions from which South Ossetian militia had attacked Georgian peacekeeping forces and Georgian villages. Georgian authorities also claim that they had received information that Russian forces were moving south through the Roki tunnel in the early morning of August 7, and that they launched the attack to prevent a full-scale Russian invasion of their country.[39] Russian authorities, however, contend that the movements at the Roki tunnel were part of normal rotation of Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in South Ossetia,[40] and that the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali was an act of aggression against Russian peacekeeping forces and the civilian population.[41]

Throughout the night between August 7 and 8, Georgian forces shelled Tskhinvali, using, among other weapons, BM-21 "Grad," a multiple rocket launcher system capable of firing 40 rockets in 20 seconds. Attacks intensified overnight and into the morning of August 8 as Georgian ground forces moved toward Tskhinvali. Around 8 a.m. Georgian ground forces entered Tskhinvali and street fighting erupted between Georgian forces and groups of South Ossetian forces, mainly  militia, who tried to stop the Georgian offensive.  In the course of the day, several villages in South Ossetia fell under Georgian forces' control.[42]

During the day on August 8, regular Russian ground forces moved through the Roki tunnel toward Tskhinvali while Russian artillery and aircraft subjected Georgian ground forces in Tskhinvali and other places to heavy shelling and bombardment. Georgian forces bombed and shelled Russian military targets as Russian forces moved toward Tskhinvali.[43] By the evening of August 8, Russian authorities declared that units of the 58th Army were deployed in the outskirts of Tskhinvali and that their artillery and combat tanks had suppressed Georgian firing positions in Tskhinvali.[44] At the same time, Georgia's President Saakashvili declared that Georgian forces completely controlled Tskhinvali and other locations.[45]

Russian aircraft also attacked several targets in undisputed Georgian territory beginning on August 8. Starting from around 9:30 a.m. on August 8, Russian aircraft attacked targets in several villages in the Gori district, Gori city, and, in the afternoon, Georgian military airports near Tbilisi.[46]

Over the next two days, Russian forces continued to move into South Ossetia, eventually numbering by some estimates 10,000 troops with significant artillery force.[47] Georgian armed forces persisted with attempts to take Tskhinvali, twice being forced back by heavy Russian fire and fire from South Ossetian forces, including volunteer militias.Early in the morning of August 10, Georgian Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili ordered his troops to withdraw from Tskhinvali and fall back to Gori city.[48]

Even though the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that Russian forces had ended all combat operations at 3 p.m. on August 12 and that all units had received an order to remain in their positions,[49] Russian armed forces crossed the South Ossetian administrative border on August 12 and moved toward Gori city.[50] The exact time when Russian forces occupied Gori city is disputed. The Russian authorities admitted that they were removing military hardware and ammunition from a depot in the vicinity of Gori on August 13,[51] but denied that there were any tanks in the city itself.[52] Russian tanks blocked roads into Gori city on August 14.[53] By August 15, Russian troops had advanced past Gori city as far as the village of Igoeti, 45 kilometers west of Tbilisi.[54] In a separate operation from the west, moving through Abkhazia, Russian forces occupied the strategically important cities of Poti, Zugdidi, and Senaki in western Georgia, establishing checkpoints and roadblocks there.

By August 16, President Saakashvili and his Russian counterpart President Dmitry Medvedev had signed a six-point ceasefire agreement brokered by French President Nikolas Sarkozy in his capacity as leading the French European Union presidency. The ceasefire agreement called for cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of all forces to their pre-August 6 positions, while allowing Russian peacekeeping forces to implement additional security measures until an international monitoring mechanism would be in place.[55]

Beginning August 15, the Russian authorities started a gradual pull-back of Russian forces from undisputed Georgian territory, with withdrawal accelerating by August 20. Russian troops left Gori city on August 22, but established military checkpoints in the villages of Variani and Karaleti, just a few kilometers north of the city. This created what the Russian authorities called a security zone and what commonly became known as a "buffer zone," approximately 20 kilometers wide and controlled by Russian forces. Although civilians were allowed to enter and exit the zone, subject to document and vehicle inspections, Russian forces denied access to Georgian police. Russian troops finally withdrew to South Ossetia in early October, although Russian troops still occupy a village on the border.[56]

As Russian forces withdrew, the EU deployed a mission under the European Security and Defense Policy, and the OSCE deployed military observers in undisputed Georgian territory adjacent to the South Ossetian border. Both sets of observers have been denied access to South Ossetia, however. On December 23 Russia refused to approve budgetary support for the OSCE's presence in Georgia, requesting separate OSCE missions in Georgia's breakaway regons. At this writing the OSCE was in the process of closing its offices in Georgia, including monitoring activities in the undisputed Georgian territories adjacent to South Ossetia.

On August 26, the Russian authorities recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia[57] in a move widely criticized by the EU, the Council of Europe, NATO, and the OSCE (Russia's move has gone almost completely unmatched internationally-the only country to have followed suit in recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states is Nicaragua). Moscow says it will keep a total of 7,600 troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.[58]

The EU, OSCE, and United Nations have co-hosted a series of talks between Georgian, Russian, and de facto South Ossetian authorities, focusing on stability and displaced persons. The first round of talks, held in mid-October, stalled over the issue of the status of the delegations from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. One of the two subsequent rounds, held in December, resulted in an oral agreement between the Russian and Georgian sides to prevent and investigate security incidents that have plagued the ceasefire.[59]