Where is South Ossetia?
The area is situated in the north-central part of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Georgia sits on Russia's southern border. South Ossetia is adjacent to North Ossetia, a sovereign republic in the Russian Federation.

Who are the Ossetians?
They are not originally from the Caucasus. They are ethnically of Iranian stock and speak their own language, which scholars say is closely related to Pashto, which is spoken by some people in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the Inventory of Conflict & Environment, South Ossetians believe they are descended from ancient Alanian and Scythian tribes and have lived in the area for thousands of years. Georgians, however, claim the Ossetians migrated to the Caucasus between the 17th and 19th centuries. The majority of South Ossetians, like Georgians, are Orthodox Christians.

How many people live in South Ossetia these days?
About 70,000 lived in the region before the latest conflict began. Russian officials told Reuters wire service that 30,000 people from South Ossetia are in the Russian Federation.

Why have the Georgians, Russians and Ossetians been fighting this month?
It's complicated.
Georgia launched an attack last week in South Ossetia to reassert its control over the area, which more or less gained its autonomy in 1992. According to a Washington Post story Wednesday, "Despite Western governments' public statements of support for (Georgian President Mikheil) Saakashvili, some Western diplomats now privately say the Georgian leadership or military made a serious and possibly criminal mistake last week by launching a massive barrage against the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, which inevitably led to major civilian deaths and casualties."
The New York Times reports Bush administration officials have adamantly asserted they warned the Georgian government not to let Russia provoke it into a fight, and "they were surprised when their advice went unheeded."
But, the Times says, an accumulation of years of mixed messages may have helped American warnings fall on deaf ears: The U.S. sent advisers to build up the Georgian military; pressed seriously to bring Georgia into the NATO orbit; championed Georgia's fledgling democracy; and proclaimed its support for the country's territorial integrity in its fight with Russia over Georgia's separatist enclaves.
Svante E. Cornell, the research director for the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, writing on the Times' Op-Ed page Monday, said:
"Russia is portraying its war in Georgia as a legitimate response to Georgia's incursion last week into its breakaway region of South Ossetia. Many in the West, while condemning the disproportionate nature of Russia's response, are also critical of ... Saakashvili for his attempts to bring South Ossetia back under Georgian rule, and of the United States for supposedly encouraging Mr. Saakashvili's risk-taking by pushing NATO membership for Georgia.
"But the truth is that for the past several months, Russia, not Georgia, has been stoking tensions in South Ossetia and another of Georgia's breakaway areas, Abkhazia. After NATO held a summit in Bucharest, Romania, in April — at which Georgia and Ukraine received positive signs of potential membership — then-President Vladimir Putin of Russia signed a decree effectively treating Abkhazia and South Ossetia as parts of the Russian Federation. This was a direct violation of Georgia's territorial integrity."