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Borderization and territorial claims South Ossetia

Borderization refers to the construction of physical barriers to transform a territorial ceasefire line into an international border.”

While there are various ways to implement so called borderization, this page focuses on the construction by South Ossetian and Russian forces of physical barriers along the ABL of South Ossetia. Such as fences, barbed wire, border signs and other markings in the landscape outside of the crossing points.

Jump to archive pages for 2020, 2019, 2018 or 2017. Note: the Chorchana – Tsnelisi territorial conflict and borderization at that location can be found in its own page

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Abduction, arrest and detention near occupation line South Ossetia

Georgian civilians living around the occupation line (sometimes referred to as Administrative Boundary Line) of South Ossetia frequently experience arrest, abduction and detention by Russian or South Ossetian “border guards” for alleged violation and trespassing of the “border”.

This page keeps track of the latest developments of such arrests. Archived years can be found  in the left sidebar. While having mapped incidents since 2014, the blogged chronology is currently only available from 2017 onwards. 

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Territorial dispute Chorchana-Tsnelisi over old and “fake” maps

In August 2019 a simmering territorial dispute pushed by South Ossetia revived when Georgian authorities constructed a new police post on Tbilisi administered territory near the South Ossetian controlled village of Tsnelisi (referred to as Uista by the South Ossetian side) . The course of the so-called “border” in the thickly forested area between between Tsnelisi and Georgian controlled Chorchana is disputed by South Ossetia. A few days prior to the renewed conflict, borderization at Gugutiantkari stirred emotions on the Georgian side.

In the past, Tskhinvali has laid a (historic) claim on the area between Tsnelisi and Chorchana, at the southwestern corner of South Ossetia. Since 2019 it has come to an explicit yet non-physical confrontation, with Georgia de facto losing control of roughly 5 square kilometers of territory, for the moment, which roots in a tactical blunder by the Georgian side . A series of incidents, heated rhetoric and Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) meetings were some of the direct and visible elements of the dispute which is still ongoing unresolved into 2025. This page is a chronological overview of developments since August 2019 (last updates at the bottom of the page).

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Russian military infrastructure in South Ossetia region

The Russian-Georgian war of August 2008 resulted in a massive increase of Russian military presence in Georgia’s South Ossetia region. An estimated 4.000 (only 4th Military Base) to 5.000 military personnel (3.500 4th Military Base, 1.500 border guards, source, source2) are deployed in the region. This is a tenfold of official Russian (“peacekeeping”) presence prior to 2008 and with much stronger warfare equipment. According to the latest data just 53.000 people live in the area. This page visualizes some of the Russian presence and its expansion over the years in South Ossetia, based on public material available.

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Borderline life: Georgia and South Ossetia

“This is a frozen conflict, but it shouldn’t become a forgotten one. Three actions are required from Russia to solve the conflict: fulfilling unconditionally all the provisions of the ceasefire agreement, ceasing „borderisation“ on the Administrative Boundary Line [of South Ossetia] and refraining from advancing further into Georgian territory, and allowing for the return of all displaced Georgian citizens”. (David McAllister, MEP, European Parliament, 14 June 2018)

On June 14, 2018, the European Parliament unanimously passed the resolution “Georgian occupied territories 10 years after the Russian invasion”. This resolution addresses a range of violations of international conduct by the Russian Federation regarding the Georgian separatist regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia, all directly or indirectly a result of the Russian intervention in August 2008, nearly 10 years ago. While this resolution was discussed and passed, new instances of the condemned actions in the region were happening, under Russia’s watch, such as kidnapping and detention of civilians and military exercises.

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