Georgia broke the call for Olympic truce and launched an offence against South Ossetia in the morning of August 8. The Georgian army quickly seized the self-proclaimed independent South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. However, the Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili was happy for his military victory only for less than one day because the Russian army quickly acted and intervened in this conflict. As a result, the Georgian army was driven out of South Ossetia. Furthermore, the South Ossetian forces seized the opportunity to drive out all of the Georgian residents out of its territory. The Abkhazia, another of Georgian province seeking independence also seized the opportunity to launch an offensive against Georgia and successfully drove out Georgian forces out of its territory.
Russian army launched a punishing attack against Georgia and destroyed the core military infrastructure built over the years with US military assistance. Moreover, the Georgian President was forced to sign the truce agreement last week which forbids Georgia to resort to the use of force against its two separatist provinces. Under such circumstances, one can not expect the two provinces to be ever ruled again by Georgian central government. Georgia has effectively lost these two provinces forever as a result of violation of Beijing Olympics truce call.
Upon a glimpse of history, one finds that Stalin, who mother was a South Ossetian, deliberately split Ossetia into two parts, North Ossetia controled by Russia, and South Ossetia ruled by Georgia, as a divide and rule strategy in order to bring the unruly Georgians into submission.
Therefore, Russia will not recognize independence of the two separatist Georgian provinces South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the near future. But instead, Russia will continue to support the two provinces militarily and politically. Their economies will be integrated. In name, they will still be regarded as Georgian territory while in practice they are administered by Russia. In this way, the Russians will continue to be able to use the territories as a leverage in the internal affairs of Georgia.
In this sense, Russia uses South Ossetia as a Damoscles sword above the head of Georgians.