Since the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, South Ossetia has slipped from the international spotlight. Through conversations with local political figures and activists, Leonardo Zanatta examines how the self-proclaimed republic is navigating shifting regional geopolitics.
The flag of South Ossetia waves over Tskhinval(i), the capital of the self-proclaimed republic. Photo: Mikhail Mordasov / ANP / AFP
In the southern foothills of the Caucasus mountains lies South Ossetia, a breakaway region that most of the world recognises as part of Georgia. The territory’s only lifeline runs north through a narrow tunnel into Russia, the sole major power that recognizes its independence and sustains its survival.
Often remembered for the short but devastating 2008 Russo-Georgian war, South Ossetia has already been beyond Tbilisi’s control for more than three decades. Its disputed status dates back to the final years of the Soviet Union, when interethnic tensions began to spiral across the Caucasus. The rise of Georgian nationalism clashed with South Ossetians’ desire for increased autonomy and closer ties with their kin in North Ossetia, across the Russian border.
The leader of Georgia’s independence movement and later first post-Soviet president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, often described Ossetians as outsiders from the North Caucasus and Moscow’s fifth column. For many in South Ossetia, such rhetoric revived painful memories of the early 1920s, when Georgia’s Menshevik government crushed Ossetian uprisings that sought protection by the Bolsheviks. According to local activist Alik Pukhati, ‘those events are still remembered here as a genocide. That was when Georgian chauvinism took shape.’
The path to secession
In 1991, after South Ossetia declared independence and Georgia revoked its autonomy, war broke out. The eighteen-month conflict left hundreds dead and tens of thousands displaced. A ceasefire in June 1992 ended the fighting and established a joint peacekeeping force of Georgian, Russian, and Ossetian troops. For the next decade, most of the region remained largely outside Tbilisi’s control. The Ergneti market, straddling the informal boundary between Ossetian- and Georgian-controlled territories, became a hub of illicit trade that kept the self-proclaimed republic afloat. At the same time, Pukhati said, ‘it was a place where Georgians and Ossetians still met to trade and talk’.
Two later developments undermined that fragile status quo. On the one hand, Russia quietly strengthened its grip over South Ossetia, gradually abandoning its role as impartial mediator. On the other hand, the 2003 Rose Revolution brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power in Tbilisi with a pledge to restore territorial integrity. His government shut down the Ergneti market and created an ‘alternative’ pro-Tbilisi administration for South Ossetia, hoping to weaken the de facto authorities. For many in the region, these moves confirmed their fear that Saakashvilii would soon try to retake South Ossetia.
That moment arrived in August 2008, when Georgian forces launched an offensive against the self-proclaimed republic and re-established control over most of its capital Tskhinval(i). The move provoked an immediate Russian response: its troops drove the Georgian army out of South Ossetia and pushed deeper into Georgian territory. Even though the war only lasted five days, its effects were devastating. About 850 people died, and more than 100,000 civilians were forced to leave their homes. ‘Our university was burned down, entire streets were in ruins, even the trees had fallen,’ Soslan Dzhusoity, a former adviser to South Ossetian presidents Leonid Tibilov (2012-’17) and Anatoly Bibilov (2017-’22), recalled. ‘Those impressions will stay with me forever.’
The war ended with a ceasefire brokered by France and the European Union. In its immediate aftermath, the Kremlin recognized South Ossetia’s independence. Over the years, a handful of countries including Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, and Nauru followed suit.
Isolation and dependence
Seventeen years later, South Ossetia’s survival depends almost entirely on Russia. Apart from the International Committee of the Red Cross, no international organization maintains a permanent presence there. Russian subsidies sustain almost every aspect of daily life, from public sector salaries to pensions and infrastructure projects. The Roki Tunnel, linking South Ossetia to North Ossetia in Russia, remains its only dependable route to the outside world.
Nowhere is this dependence more evident than in the realm of security. Since 2008, treaties signed by the Kremlin and the de facto authorities have linked South Ossetia’s defense structures directly to Moscow. The Russian 4th Military Base anchors a network of fortifications and outposts across the enclave. Meanwhile, the South Ossetian military has shrunk, with a 2018 agreement allowing locals to serve under Moscow’s command.
A man stands near Khurvaleti, on the Georgian side of the fence erected by Russia that demarcates the de facto border of South Ossetia. Photo: Vano Shlamov / ANP / AFP
Russian FSB border guards also patrol the de facto borders between South Ossetia and Georgia, enforcing what in the West and Tbilisi has come to be known as the process of ‘borderization.’ In doing so, Russia has advanced barbed-wire fences beyond the 2008 ceasefire line, gradually extending the area under their control. As a result, Georgians living along the demarcation line have been separated from their homes, farmland, or family. Some residents have been detained, sometimes even killed, for accidentally crossing what once was an invisible boundary.
While Western and Georgian observers view this process as a Russian tactic aimed at destabilizing Georgia, Ossetians see it differently. ‘Demarcating the border reflects the interests of our people,’ Vyacheslav Gobozov, former adviser to South Ossetian president Alan Gagloev (2022-present), explained. ‘Our parliament has debated the precise location for years, as there are multiple maps, and the Russians are just doing the work that we are unable to do due to lack of manpower.’ Soslan Dzhusoity offered a more cautious perspective: ‘Yes, it is true that we initiated the [borderization] process and remain most invested in delimiting our borders. But we do not control how it is carried out. Russia disregards both the maps proposed by us as well as Georgian maps, instead relying on its own Soviet-era military charts. When marking the border on the ground, they adjust it in whatever way is most convenient for them.’
South Ossetia as a crypto paradise?
A key issue arising from this dependence is the South Ossetian elite’s inability – or unwillingness – to establish sustainable sources of income that do not rely on Moscow’s funding. ‘Instead of using Moscow’s aid to build institutions or plan for the future, the elite have treated it as a source of personal enrichment,’ Pukhati explained.
Former presidential advisor Dzhusoity offers an example of such shortsightedness. In 2018, he had devised an ambitious plan to establish a cryptocurrency exchange in South Ossetia, believing that the self-proclaimed republic could have become an ideal location for digital finance beyond the reach of Western sanctions. For months, he worked with Russian and Iranian partners, hoping that the project would generate tax revenue and provide the region with a long-term economic vision. Despite months of preparation and negotiations, his proposal was met with silence by the de facto South Ossetian authorities. ‘There was no interest at all,’ he said. ‘No one in power wanted to think beyond their own short-term gains.’
Mistrust toward the EU
Tbilisi, for its part, has attempted some engagement with Ossetia. Initiatives such as the 2010 ‘State Strategy on Occupied Territories’ and the 2018 ‘A Step to a Better Future’ offer South Ossetians access to healthcare, education, and business opportunities in Georgia.
However, these efforts are frequently written off by Tskhinval(i) as attempts to subvert sovereignty within the enclave. Similar suspicions are held toward the European Union Monitoring Mission, which was established to monitor boundary incidents but has not yet received permission to operate inside South Ossetia. ‘They speak of cooperation but think of absorption,’ Ossetian activist Pukhati argued.
This attitude is mostly motivated by the fact that Tbilisi considers the enclave occupied by Russia and refuses to engage directly with the de facto authorities. ‘Since 1989, Georgia has refused to acknowledge our cultural and political agency’ Dzhusoity claimed. ‘Even after the 2008 war, they have continued to pretend that we do not exist and have only communicated with or through Moscow. Incidents along the border are the result of such practices.’
South Ossetia’s future is ultimately decided in the Kremlin, not in Tskhinval(i)
Although some of the people I have spoken to expressed a desire to live in an independent South Ossetia, the de facto authorities have repeatedly emphasized that their ultimate goal remains integration with North Ossetia within Russia. Beyond issues of identity and ideology, economic hardship is the main factor driving Ossetians toward North Ossetia, where they often have family, or to other parts of Russia. As a result, referendums on joining the Russian Federation have been proposed multiple times, most recently in 2022 under President Bibilov, also as a means to combat depopulation. His successor, Alan Gagloev, later postponed the vote, citing a lack of coordination with Moscow. This decision exposed an uncomfortable truth: South Ossetia’s future is ultimately decided in the Kremlin, not in Tskhinval(i).
The war in Ukraine and the fall of Nagorno-Karabakh
As a consequence of South Ossetia’s structural dependence on Russia, the region’s fortunes rise and fall with Moscow’s. After the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the shockwaves quickly reached the self-proclaimed republic. According to Pukhati, ‘many Ossetians went to Ukraine to fight as volunteers, and many of them lost their lives. These losses are deeply felt in South Ossetia, which has only about 30,000 residents. When funerals become routine in such a small community, the psychological toll is immense.’ At least 60 South Ossetians who fought for Russia are known to have perished in Ukraine as of November 2024. Yet, based on my conversations and visual evidence of fresh graves at a cemetery in Vladikavkaz – the regional capital of North Ossetia in Russia – which has been reserved for casualties from Ukraine, the actual number may be considerably higher.
Russian soldiers pass near a destroyed building in Tskhinval(i) in September 2008. Photo: Kazbek Basayev / ANP / AFP
Economic incentives have played a significant role in mobilizing volunteers. Generous payments from the Russian government have encouraged many to join Putin’s war. Still, financial motives tell only part of the story. The roots of South Ossetia’s involvement in the Ukrainian conflict run deeper. In 2014, amid the Maidan protests, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and the fighting in Donbas, the de facto authorities recognized the independence proclaimed by the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. Volunteers from both North and South Ossetia soon appeared among the ranks of pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. One year later, the two entities returned the favor by recognizing South Ossetia’s independence. When Russian president Vladimir Putin formally recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk republics in February 2022, people in Tskhinval(i) celebrated in the streets. For many, it felt like validation of their own struggle.
Former presidential advisor Gobozov told me that many in South Ossetia view the war in Ukraine as a continuation of the 2008 conflict with Georgia. ‘Ukrainian volunteers fought for Tbilisi then, and today the Georgian Legion fights alongside Kyiv’ he said. ‘Back then, the West exploited our conflict with Georgia to challenge Russia in its neighborhood. Today we face a similar test in Ukraine. Just as we fought for our survival against Tbilisi and Moscow came to our aid, now we feel compelled to support it.’ It is not by chance that, while praising Russia’s offensive, then-president Anatoliy Bibilov warned that ‘if we, together with Russia, do not prevail over the band of neo-fascists who have turned Ukraine into a stronghold of Nazism, the next target will be South Ossetia.’
How reliable is Russia?
As the war dragged on and Russian forces faced setbacks, anxiety spread through the region. Locals worried that any weakening of Russia’s military or economy could jeopardize their ‘independence’. In March 2022, Russian deputy economy minister Dmitry Volvach announced Moscow’s intention to reduce South Ossetia’s reliance on Russian aid within three years, without offering details. Around the same time, reports based on satellite images revealed that troops and equipment from the 4th Military Base in South Ossetia had been redeployed to the Ukrainian front. Within the self-proclaimed republic, the move sparked criticism of Bibilov for leaving the territory exposed and defenseless.
Amid these concerns, speculation grew that Georgia might see an opportunity to reclaim South Ossetia. Ukrainian officials even urged Tbilisi to ‘open a second front’ against Russia in South Ossetia, describing this move as a ‘historic opportunity’. The idea resurfaced in September 2023, when Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, another breakaway republic where Russian peacekeepers had been stationed since 2020. Within 24 hours, the Armenian-led administration capitulated, and almost the entire population fled to Armenia. Overstretched in Ukraine and unwilling to confront Baku, Moscow withdrew its peacekeepers in April 2024.
Russia abandoned Nagorno-Karabakh, what would stop it from doing the same in South Ossetia?
The Kremlin’s inaction in Nagorno-Karabakh caused unease, leading international observers to draw parallels. If Russia had effectively abandoned a conflict in which it had played a central role for decades, what would stop it from doing the same in South Ossetia? Gobozov explained that ‘the precedent is regrettable, especially since South Ossetia recognized the Nagorno-Karabakh republic and has fraternal ties with its population. But our case is different. We are recognized by Russia and share a border with it. In addition, there are specific treaties that guarantee that any attack on us would be treated as an attack on Russia.’
Others I spoke with, such as Dzhusoity, were less confident. ‘For years I believed South Ossetia should remain independent, but after what happened in Nagorno-Karabakh, I now think unification with North Ossetia inside Russia would be safer for us,’ he argued. ‘It is unlikely that Russia would allow Georgia to launch another military campaign. But things are changing fast, and no one knows how the war in Ukraine will end. Our dependence on Moscow has become a source of deep anxiety. People feel it every day.’
Georgia's political U-turn
South Ossetia has received renewed international attention also because of Georgian domestic politics. Ruling party Georgian Dream has been responsible for the country’s democratic backsliding; a development which has sparked large-scale street protests, with opposition leaders accusing the government of steering the country back into Moscow’s orbit.
Amid this turmoil, Georgian leaders occasionally invoked South Ossetia. In May 2024, prime minister Kobakhidze predicted that Georgians and Ossetians could live side by side again by 2030. Chairman of Georgian Dream Bidzina Ivanishvili went further by suggesting that Georgia might even issue an apology to South Ossetians. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov praised the proposal and stated that Moscow was ready to help ‘normalize’ ties.
In Tskhinval(i), few believe Georgian Dream to be actually pro-Russian. Soslan Dzhusoity argued that the foreign policy reorientation ‘is not ideological. It is a government of businessmen who care about profit.’ Despite occasional talk of reconciliation, most South Ossetians doubt genuine dialogue is possible. ‘Reconciliation is impossible as long as Georgian society continues to frame us as a Russian puppet,’ Pukhati claimed. ‘That is why Ivanishvili’s idea of an apology quickly vanished. Georgian Dream’s representatives know that this would cost them too much.’
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