These are all excellent answers. The conflict goes much farther back in time, however. Georgia became a sort of vassal state to Russia in the 18th Century, partly for protection against the Ottoman Empire and partly because they could not protect themselves against the Russians anyway. Ethnic and nationalist tensions between Georgia and Russia have surfaced continuously ever since. Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan united as the Transcaucasion Federation in 1917, Georgia becoming independant the following year. In 1922 they were forcibly annexed by the USSR.
The disturbing thing about the current unrest to me is the excuse used by Putin to explain the invasion of South Ossetia and Abkhazistan, that of the Russian national duty to "protect" Russians living in these areas. The Abkhazi are not Russian, neither are the Ossetians, and neither ethnic group has expressed any interest in being part of Russia again. The North Ossetians, living in Russia, want to seperate from the larger country and unite with the South Ossetians as an independant nation.
The excuse of protecting Russians living in neighboring countries is the same excuse Hitler gave for annexing Czechoslovakia and invading Poland, to "protect" Germans living in a country he wanted.
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