Occupied territories of Georgia
According to the Georgian law titled Law on Occupied Territories of Georgia, the term “the occupied territories and territorial waters” or “The Occupied Territories” covers the territories of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, Tskhinvali Region (territory of the former South Ossetia Autonomous Region) and waters in the Black Sea located in the aquatic territory of the Black Sea, along Georgia’s state border with the Russian Federation, to the South of the Psou river, up to the administrative border at the estuary of the Engury River. The term also covers the air space over the aforementioned territories.
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.