Though tensions had existed between Georgia and Russia for years and more intensively since the Rose Revolution, an international diplomatic crisis escalated in the spring of 2008, namely after Russia announced in response to the Western recognition of the independence of Kosovo that it would no longer participate in the Commonwealth of Independent States economic sanctions imposed on Abkhazia in 1996 and established direct relations with the separatist authorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The crisis was also linked to the Georgian attempts to gain a NATO Membership Action Plan at the 2008 Bucharest Summit.
Until the end of June much of the conflict between Russia and Georgia was concentrated in Abkhazia, as were both Georgian and international efforts to negotiate a peace settlement. In early July the theater had moved to South Ossetia, where skirmishes between Ossetian militias and Georgian troops turned deadly on 3 July following the attempted assassination of pro-Georgian president of South Ossetia Dmitry Sanakoyev. The conflict led to a full-scale invasion of Georgia by Russia.
