They were trying to secede from Georgia and they asked him in, do some searching about this and stop banging your war drum...
This non existent country of “South Ossetia” is a Russian invention that they need to control both ends of the only tunnel through Caucasus mountains.
Russia set up a gangster regime there living on Russian subsidies and collecting toll from the Roki tunnel usage. The whole Russian propped “government” there consists of KGB operatives. Before the 2008 war the only time this region got mentioned in the news was due to them having a printshop making high quality fake dollars - all under the control of Russians and yet giving them some plausible deniability.