Georgia–South Ossetia border

Unlike Abkhazia, South Ossetia was never a territorial entity prior to the Soviet era, and it was subsumed into these various administrative divisions.

Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, the peoples of the southern Caucasus had seceded from Russia, declared the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (TDFR) in 1918 and started peace talks with the Ottomans.

[4][5] The area of modern South Ossetia was included within Georgia, though many Ossetians, who were generally poorer and typically rural tenants of Georgian landowners, were more sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause.

[16] The creation of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast was officially proclaimed on 20 April 1922 as a semi-autonomous area within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.

[19] As elsewhere with the Soviet Union the boundary making is often depicted as a cynical exercise in 'divide and rule', however Arsene Saparov, a scholar who had studied in detail the course of events that led to South Ossetia's creation, has stated that, "the autonomy of South Ossetia was, in the long run, an unsuccessful attempt at conflict resolution by the Bolsheviks, and not the product of deliberate manipulations by Stalin – as is frequently believed.

After fierce fighting and some 1,000-2,000 deaths a ceasefire was signed in 1992, leaving the territory of the former South Ossetia AO divided between Ossetian and Georgian held areas.

[13][24] Since 2009 Russian and Ossetian troops have begun unilaterally demarcating the Georgia–South Ossetia border on the ground with fences and signs, in a process known as 'borderization'.

The process has also been criticised as it has divided local people from their lands which fall on the 'wrong' side of the line, and the increased militarisation has impeded cross-border movement.

[31] Located between the city of Odzisi and Mosabruni (in Georgian: მოსაბრუნი) or Razdakhan (in Ossetian: Раздæхæн; in Russian: Раздахан), this border crossing serves the residents of the Leningor district.