Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Russo-Georgian War began on the 1st of August 2008 with the first exchange of fire near Tskhinvali, and the main combat phase lasted sixteen days. French president Nicolas Sarkozy brokered a ceasefire that Russian president Medvedev signed on the 16th of August 2008.
Russia sought to halt Georgia's prospective NATO membership, support the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and assert military influence over the post-Soviet space. In 2012, Putin admitted to journalists that Russia had prepared an actionable invasion plan as early as 2006-2007 and that the Russian military had provided training to South Ossetian separatists.
The war displaced approximately 192,000 people. South Ossetian militias burned and pillaged ethnic Georgian villages; the Memorial society documented that villages including Kekhvi, Kurta, Achabeti, Tamarasheni, Eredvi, Vanati, and Avnevi were virtually entirely destroyed. A year after fighting, around 30,000 ethnic Georgians remained displaced.
On the 26th of August 2008, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev issued orders recognising both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states. The United States, France, NATO, the G7, and the Council of Europe condemned the recognition as a violation of Georgia's territorial integrity. Georgia severed diplomatic ties with Russia the same day.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy personally negotiated the ceasefire while France held the rotating EU Council presidency. The six-point agreement was signed by Medvedev on the 16th of August and by Georgian president Saakashvili on the 15th of August 2008, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice present.
In December 2022, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for three de facto South Ossetian officials: Mikhail Mindzaev, Gamlet Guchmazov, and David Sanakoev. In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia bore legal responsibility for human rights violations in the two separatist regions. On the 14th of October 2025, the court ordered Russia to pay Georgia more than 250 million euros in damages.