South Ossetia war (1991-1992)

The South Ossetia war of 1991 to 1992, also called the First South Ossetia War, was an armed conflict inside the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic and then newly independent Georgia. Georgian government forces and Georgian militias fought South Ossetian separatists, who were later backed by Russian forces, over whether the mainly Ossetian region around Tskhinvali would stay under Tbilisi's authority. Fighting began with street clashes in Tskhinvali in January 1991 and settled into a static, often brutal siege in which Georgian units held the hills around the city while Ossetian militias held the town and the road north to North Ossetia. Formations on both sides were poorly disciplined and ceasefires repeatedly collapsed. The conflict ended with the Dagomys Agreement of 24 June 1992, which created a Joint Control Commission and a joint Georgian, Russian and Ossetian peacekeeping force and left the region divided between areas held by Georgia and areas held by the unrecognised South Ossetian authorities. About a thousand people died, and tens of thousands of Georgians and Ossetians fled their homes.