2013 in Georgia (country) new government repeatedly stressed their adherence to Georgia’s pro-Western foreign policy course and intention to improve relations with Russia, which had fought a war with Georgia over breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008. Despite verbal overtures and meeting between Georgian and Russian diplomats, the relations between the two countries showed no significant improvement. Georgia protested against installment of barbwire fences by the Russian military along the South Ossetian demarcation line. In November, Georgia initialed an association agreement with the European Union and won praise from NATO for reforms. 2013 in Georgia (country) In 2013, Georgia finalized its first-ever peaceful
International recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on 28 August 2008 argued that Medvedev's decree was "a blow below the belt" for Russia's ally Serbia. "If the changes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia occurred, as Russia claims, in accordance with the example set in Kosovo, then that means that Russia has indirectly admitted that Kosovo’s departure from Serbia was lawful." In September 2009, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, when asked by journalists why Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be internationally recognised and Kosovo not, said that "the strongest argument is the fact that at the time when Kosovo’s authorities made the UDI, nobody