Portal:Georgia (country)/Good articles

The Russo-Georgian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Georgia, was a 16-day war waged against Georgia by the Russian Federation in August 2008. It took place within Georgia's internationally recognized territory, which includes Russia-backed South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Hostilities broke out on 1 August, when South Ossetian separatists began shelling Georgian villages, eventually prompting a Georgian military offensive into South Ossetia on 7 August. The Russian military invaded Georgia on 8 August and was joined by Abkhaz separatists, although Russian troops had already been covertly operating in South Ossetia before 7 August. A ceasefire agreement brokered by France was signed into force by Georgia and Russia on 16 August. It is widely regarded as the first European war of the 21st century.

Following the 1991 Georgian independence referendum, the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic declared independence as a sovereign state amidst the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A year later, the South Ossetia war and the Abkhazia war resulted in Georgia's loss of territory in what had been the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast and the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, respectively, to two internationally unrecognized separatist movements that were supported by the newly independent Russian Federation. A series of ceasefire agreements brokered by Russia in 1992, 1993, and 1994 resulted in the establishment of the "Joint Control Commission" in South Ossetia, but Georgians were ethnically cleansed from Abkhazia by 1998. In 2000, Vladimir Putin became Russia's president, while Georgia experienced the Rose Revolution in 2003 and moved towards forging closer ties with the European Union and NATO. Consequently, Georgia–Russia relations deteriorated rapidly by 2006 and spiralled into a diplomatic crisis by 2008. (Full article...)