Is Ossetia breaking away from Georgia or from Russia or both? ?

Question

Every news article I see on this does not explain or atleast I can't seem to figure it out. Why does Ossetia want to breaking away? Why does/is the media not touching on this.

Answer 1

ossetia (and the other region abkhazia) broke away from georgia in the early 90th soon after the collapse of the soviet union.  the reason for their secession was persecution of ethnical minorities in georgia.  the problem actually existed even when georgia was a part of the soviet union though on a much smaller scale because nationalism was strongly condemned by the mainstream soviet ideology.  the collapse of the soviet union was accompanied by a surge of nationalistic sentiments in several parts of the country including georgia where such sentiments were particularly strong.  apparently because of not wishing to be the second grade people first ossetians and later abkhazians tried to secede.  In both cases in response to their decisions georgia sent troops to their regions.  There were 2 wars in both of which georgia lost for one reason because at that time its army was only being formed and was not any strong.  in both cases russia served as a mediator helping the sides to sign a ceasefire.  under the terms of both ceasefire agreements russian peacekeeping troops were sent to the respective regions.  since then both breakaway regions have run their own affairs and did not want to integrate back in georgia, for one thing because the first attempt of geoorgians to reintegrate them was accompanied by attrocities committed by the georgian army.  they were, however, never recognized by any country in the world including russia.  russia however has been helping those people and put them on a fast track to its citizenship - because those people did not have any citizenship - they were soviet citizens but never citizens of georgia and that was creating problems for them.  recently georgian government decided to reintegrate one of those regions by force once again.  the georgian army fired at a lightly armed russian peacekeeping force and then moved on to wiping out villages and towns in ossetia using tanks heavy artillery and multiple rocket launchers.  many people (according to the russian claim around 1000) were killed on the first day of the georgian onslaught and 10s of thousands ran for safety to russia and became refugees.  then the russian army moved in and now the georgians say they are the victim (b/c they lost the war i guess).  in any case, after the 2nd massacre in less then 20 years committed by georgians against them ossetians are not particularly eager to reintegrate in georgia.  i find it pretty natural.  don't you think.

Answer 2

Russia populated the area with Russians so it could claim it's protecting its citizens and go in.  Georgia is the most pro-US country in the region and has been asking to be let into NATO, and Putin will not have it.  This is purely a Russian power play.  Europe buys Russian oil, but can get oil elsewhere.  But it absolutely cannot survive without Russia's massive supply of natural gas, so it is emasculated in this situation (not that Europe has displayed much in the way of cojones in the last fifty years).  The media won't go near this because they support leftist European pacifism, and because a good number of them are leftists themselves and would be very happy for the old Soviet Union to come back, to counter the Evil United States.