The migration of Alan-Ossetians to the region is believed to be connected to the fall of Kingdom of Alania in the North Caucasus in 13th and 14th centuries to the Mongols and later to Timur's armies.

[10] On 11 December 1990, the Georgian Parliament passed a bill that effectively abolished South Ossetia's autonomous status to prevent separatism.

[12] On 4 May 1991, the South Ossetian Parliament declared its intention to separate from Georgia and to unite with North Ossetia, which was located within the borders of the Russian Federation.

[11] Amidst rising ethnic tensions, war broke out when Georgian police forces and paramilitary organizations entered the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, to restore order.

A Joint Control Commission for Georgian–Ossetian Conflict Resolution and peacekeeping force, composed of Russian, Georgian and Ossetian troops, was set up.

A memorandum on "Measures for providing security and confidence building" was signed in Moscow on 16 May 1996, which was regarded as the first step towards a rapprochement between Georgia and the separatists of South Ossetia.

Up to the end of 2003, a number of law enforcement officials from South Ossetia and Georgia proper allegedly were participating in criminal economic activities.

"[30] On 5 August 2004, Russian State Duma issued an official statement concerning the aggravation of situation around South Ossetia and Abkhazia in connection "with political actions of Georgian authorities".

[31] Hundreds of Russian volunteers, mainly Cossacks, stated their readiness to protect the people of South Ossetia should the conflict escalate any further.

[32] The tensions increased on the night of 10–11 August, when Georgian and South Ossetian villages in the area north of Tskhinvali came under fire and civilians were injured.

On 13 August, Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and de facto South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity agreed on a ceasefire, which was breached multiple times by both sides.

In emergency sessions of the JCC on 17 and 18 August in Tbilisi and Tskhinvali, the sides debated complex ceasefire proposals and demilitarization projects.

[33] At a high-level meeting between Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity on 5 November in Sochi, Russia, an agreement on demilitarization of the conflict zone was reached.

[34][35] Saakashvili presented a new vision for resolving the South Ossetian conflict at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) session in Strasbourg, on 26 January 2005.

At the same time South Ossetia would have a voice in the national structures of government as well, with a constitutional guarantee of representation in the judicial and constitutional-judicial branches and in the Parliament.

[38] On 3 September 2006, the South Ossetian forces opened fire at a Georgian MI-8 helicopter carrying Defense Minister of Georgia, Irakli Okruashvili, when it flew over the separatist-held territory.

The South Ossetian officials confirmed their troops were responsible for the attack, but denied the claim that the aircraft was targeted because of prior intelligence that Okruashvili was on board.

"We are not interested in having either Okruashvili or [Georgian president Mikheil] Saakashvili killed, as they are helping us to achieve independence," declared South Ossetian Interior minister Mikhail Mindzayev.

Other items found in the militants' possession included extremist Wahhabi literature, maps of Java district and sets of Russian peacekeeping uniforms.

Those findings led the South Ossetian authorities to conclude that the militants were planning to carry out acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks.

Shota Khizanishvili, a spokesperson for the Georgian Interior Ministry, supposed that the incident could be connected to "internal conflicts in South Ossetia".

[43] On 29 March 2007, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned in a statement that Tbilisi's plan to set up a temporary administrative unit in the part of breakaway South Ossetia would "shatter an already fragile situation".

Georgian officials said that Russian attack aircraft, an SU-24 Fencer, violated its airspace and fired Raduga Kh-58 anti-radar tactically guided missile.

Georgian troops returned fire and advanced towards the capital of the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, during the night of 8 August.

[83] Russian forces withdrew from the buffer zones adjacent to Abkhazia and South Ossetia on 8 October and control over them was transferred to the European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia.

[84] In July 2009, the media outlets reported that Georgia and Russia were on the brink of another war as both sides mobilized troops near Ergneti checkpoint.

[88] On 24–25 August, 2019, tensions mounted at the administrative boundary line in South Ossetia as the Georgian police erected a checkpoint between the villages of Chorchana and Tsnelisi in response to ongoing Russian–South Ossetian demarcation works.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia called on de facto South Ossetian authorities to stop provocations and unlawful demarcation works.

On 29 August, South Ossetian officials abruptly left the meeting with Georgian government conducted in Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) format.

Representatives of Tbilisi, Moscow and Tskhinvali continued discussing the situation during a series of "technical meetings", but serious security challenges remained.