South Ossetia South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. In the wake of the 2008 war, Georgia and a significant part of the international community consider South Ossetia to be occupied by the Russian military. South Ossetia relies heavily on military, political and financial aid from Russia. Russia does not allow the European Union Monitoring Mission to enter South Ossetia. South Ossetia, Transnistria, Artsakh, and Abkhazia are sometimes referred to as post-Soviet "frozen conflict" zones. The territory of contemporary South Ossetia was part of the kingdom of Iberia, the latter was unified under the single Georgian monarchy in 11th-century, extending its possessions up to Dvaleti.
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