Russo-Georgian War

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The Russo-Georgian War, also known as the Russian invasion of Georgia, was a war waged against Georgia by the Russian Federation and the Russian-backed separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in August 2008. The fighting took place in the strategically important South Caucasus region. It is regarded as the first European war of the 21st century. Following the 1991 Georgian independence referendum, the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic declared independence as a sovereign state amidst the dissolution of the Soviet Union. A year later, the South Ossetia war and the Abkhazia war resulted in Georgia's partial loss of territory in what had been the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast and the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, respectively, to two internationally unrecognized separatist movements that were supported by the newly independent Russian Federation. A series of ceasefire agreements brokered by Russia in 1992, 1993, and 1994 resulted in the establishment of the "Joint...

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