Who does the territory of South Ossetia belong to?
Regardless of the population, who does the land itself belong to? How can you commit “aggression” against yourself?
What they should have done is expel all Russians from that territory. Then they can’t claim that Georgia attacked the “Russian people”.
Then the Georgians would have been accused of making “Russians” evacuate...(Moscow has been handing out Russian passports to the Ossetians like free movie passes for over a year) and created an “international humanitarian crisis.”
And according to the russians now, their new publically stated international policy is to “protect the DIGNITY” of ANY Russian citizen ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD WITH MILITARY FORCE, IF NEEDED!.” I wonder how that would go over if we attacked France to protect the dignity of an American citizen.