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.
Red Army invasion of Georgia
The independence of Georgia had been recognized by Russia in the Treaty of Moscow, signed on 7 May 1920, and the subsequent invasion of the country was not universally agreed upon in Moscow. It was largely engineered by two influential Georgian-born Soviet/Russian officials, Joseph Stalin and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who on 14 February 1921 got the consent of Russian leader Vladimir Lenin to advance into Georgia, on the pretext of supporting "peasants and workers rebellion" in the country. Russian forces took the Georgian capital Tbilisi (then known as "Tiflis" to most non-Georgian speakers) after heavy fighting and declared the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic on 25 February 1921. The rest of the country was overrun within three weeks, but it was not until September 1924 that Soviet rule was firmly established. Almost simultaneous occupation of a large portion of southwest Georgia by Turkey (February — March 1921) threatened to develop into a crisis between Moscow and Ankara, and led to significant territorial concessions by the Soviets to the Turkish National Government in the Treaty of Kars.