1991–1992 South Ossetia War allied with the Russian Bolsheviks, fighting a war against the newly independent Menshevik Georgia. Initially Georgia was successful, but in 1921, the Red Army conquered the country. South Ossetia became an autonomous oblast in the Soviet republic of Georgia. During the Soviet period, relations between ethnic Ossetians and Georgians were peaceful, with a high rate of interaction and intermarriages. In 1989, around 98,000 people lived in South Ossetia. Of these, 66.61% were Ossetian and 29.44% Georgian. Another 99,000 Ossetians lived throughout the rest of Georgia. At the end of 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia became an
Russia–South Ossetia relations formally integrated into the Russian economy by treaty in March 2015. After being instructed by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in March 2009, Russia allocated 2.8 billion rubles from the Russian federal budget, as part of agreements between the Russian Ministry of Finance and its South Ossetian counterpart, which were based on the treaty signed in September 2008. Russia also allocated an additional 8.5 billion rubles to South Ossetia in order to assist in rebuilding housing, social amenities and utilities which were destroyed or damaged during the 2008 war. According to Eduard Kokoity, seventy percent of residential housing and eighty