Russo-Georgian War

Map of the Russo-Georgian border

The Russo-Georgian War was a short conflict fought primarily between the Russian Federation and Georgia between the 1st and 16th of August 2008. It also included separatists in the Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia who allied with the Russians against the Georgian government. The conflict came about as a result of declining relations between Russia and Georgia, the latter being a former constituent part of the USSR. Georgia’s political establishment became markedly more pro-western and anti-Russian in the course of the 2000s, leading Russia to encourage separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This culminated in a Russian invasion of Georgia on the 1st of August 2008. At the end of a two and half week campaign the Republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia were effectively established as Russian puppet states in the region, securing Russian access to the Black Sea in this part of the South Caucasus. Though short-lived, the conflict displaced upwards of 200,000 people, while political tensions in the geopolitical region in its aftermath continue to drive migration away from Georgia.

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Russo-Georgian War chronology of events

The Red Army in Tbilisi in 1921

Georgia and the South Caucasus region was conquered by the Russian Empire in the second half of the eighteenth century, with the process completed in the first years of the nineteenth century. It later briefly acquired its independence during the chaos of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War that followed. However, in the early 1920s it was reclaimed by the emerging USSR and it became a constituent part of the Soviet Union from 1922 onwards. That arrangement lasted less than 70 years. As the Cold War came to an end in the late 1980s and the Soviet Union began to collapse, a Georgian separatist movement emerged and in 1991 Georgia established its independence from the Russian state.

Damage from the Russo-Georgian War

From the very point of independence in 1991 the Georgian state had to deal with separatist movements in the western parts of the country along the coast of the Black Sea and in the north along the border with Russia. Two minority groups prevailed here, the Ossetians, an Iranian people, and the Abkhazians, a Northwest Caucasian ethnic group. Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s they clamored for their own countries and engaged in low level insurgency warfare to achieve the same. Both groups were provided with support and material aid by the government of the Russian Federation, which had lost much of its former territory as the Soviet Union collapsed, but which was determined to maintain control over parts of the Caucasus such as Ossetia and Chechnya. This Russian aid remained limited for many years. However, when the Rose Revolution of 2003 led to the adoption of a more pro-western stance by the Georgian government in Tbilisi, the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin decided on more direct intervention in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The Russo-Georgian War began on the 1st of August 2008 when South Ossetian forces began shelling Georgian villages. After a week of violence in which the Georgian government tried to quell the hostilities, the Russian Federation sent its own army into Georgia, claiming it was doing so in order to protect the Ossetians of the region. A day later, on the 9th of August, the forces of the Republic of Abkhazia also entered the conflict. Over the next week the Russians and their allies pushed into the disputed territories and Georgian land, effectively winning the brief war military in the space of about five days. With this the longstanding claims of the Ossetians and Abkhazians to rule over a Republic of South Ossetia and a Republic of Abkhazia were realized. These states are recognized by Russia and are de-facto constituent parts of the Russian Federation today, though they are not recognized internationally. The brief war led to the displacement of nearly 200,000 people, approximately 10% of whom are still displaced more than a decade and a half later. More broadly the conflict has fuelled migration away from Georgia in the early twenty-first century owing to geopolitical tensions in the South Caucasus.

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Extent of migration associated with the Russo-Georgian War

The Russo-Georgian War led to the displacement of upwards of 200,000 people. A majority of these were people of Georgian ethnicity who moved out of Abkhazia and South Ossetia into Georgia, while there was also some movement of ethnic Ossetians and Abkhazians in the other direction. Not all of the migration was ethnically and politically grounded. Some of it was simply people trying to move out of the way of the fighting. This initial period of migration associated with the war has been followed by a steady stream of further migration down to the present day as the wider South Caucasus region has continued to experience instability, political turmoil and repression of certain groups with the different jurisdictions involved in the war.

Demographic impact of the Russo-Georgian War

The demographic impact of the Russo-Georgian War and the wider conflict in the South Caucasus has been significant. It has led to depopulation in numerous areas, most notably South Ossetia. This region had a population of approximately 100,000 people in the early 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed. Owing to ethnic cleansing and migrant displacement, there is just 53,000 people living here today, a loss of nearly 50% of the population. Similarly, despite the movement of many ethnic Georgians into Georgia from South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008, Georgia’s population has dropped markedly from a high of over five million people in the early 1990s to just 3.8 million today.

Many Georgians have migrated to other parts of Europe. The largest such Georgian diaspora community is in Ukraine, where there are approximately 70,000 people of Georgian heritage. Greece is the European Union member state with the largest Georgian diaspora community, standing at over 40,000. Other countries with between 10,000 and 20,000 Georgian people or people of Georgian heritage in Europe include France, Germany, Spain and Italy. In the early 2020s there has been a particular surge in asylum applicants from Georgia in Ireland, as Georgia itself struggles with ongoing political issues over Russian efforts to exert influence over the country.

See also

• Russia
• Soviet Union
• Russian Civil War

Explore more about the Russo-Georgian War

• How a Five‑Day War With Georgia Allowed Russia to Reassert Its Military Might at History
• The 2008 Russo-Georgian War at the Atlantic Council
• 2008 Georgia Russia Conflict Fast Facts at CNN
• User Story: Irakli Murtskhvaladze uncovers a plethora of family members at the MyHeritage Blog

References

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