After months of escalation, Georgia assaults Tskhinvali; Russia's prepared counter-invasion drives Georgian forces from South Ossetia, opens a second front from Abkhazia, and pushes into uncontested Georgia before an EU-mediated ceasefire on the fifth day. The EU's independent inquiry later finds Georgia fired first within a conflict both sides had prepared and Russia had provoked.
Why it mattersThe first war between Russia and a post-Soviet state: it demonstrated that force could revise the post-Soviet map at acceptable cost — the precedent Ukraine tested at full scale — and it converted Georgia's frozen conflicts into permanently garrisoned instruments of Russian policy.
Confidence: HighSources: Established historical record · EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM)MethodologyCorrections