Occupied territories of Georgia
Occupied territories of Georgia () are the territories occupied by Russia after the Russo-Georgian War in 2008. They consist of the regions of Abkhazia and the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast of Soviet Georgia (currently divided between several administrative divisions of independent Georgia), whose status is a matter of international dispute.
Background of the Russo-Georgian War
Georgia had two strategic characteristics that were seen as irreplaceable in Moscow: the border with Turkey and the location on the Black Sea. Russia is more worried of Turkish than Iranian influence in the Caucasus, and perceives Turkey as a threat in the political, economical and military fields. The Russian ruling elites had focused on Georgia since the days of the presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze, whom they blamed, together with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and Alexander Yakovlev, Central Committee Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, for the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. Russian post-Soviet security establishments also viewed the Abkhaz coastline and illicit business opportunities provided by lawless Abkhazia and South Ossetia as additional incentives for deep involvement in Georgia. Of the two regions - Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the first is strategically and economically more significant to Russia. In the 1990s the Russian leadership noted that their strategic weight in the Black Sea depended on the presence of Russian troops on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. Russia hoped to use South Ossetia initially to keep Georgia within the Soviet Union and later in a Russian sphere of influence.