Oleg Teziev (born 16 January 1948) is a military commander and soldier from the partially recognized Caucasian Republic of South Ossetia serving as the Republic's first prime minister.[1]
Teziev would serve in the Soviet Army starting in 1972,and from 1981 to 1987 he worked in a local factory before starting one of the first cooperatives in Ossetia,SARMAT,and quickly become one of the regions wealthiest businessmen.[citation needed]
Military career
During the Dissolution of the Soviet Union,Oleg Teziev formed a people's self defense militia in Tskhinvali. Teziev purchased cars in Russia to be imported into South Ossetia to be transformed into technicals. Teziev's technical convoys would be attacked by both the KGB as well as the local Georgian Police. In one instance a Georgian Self Defense militia in one of the ethnically Georgian villages between Tskhinvali and the Roki Tunnel destroyed one of the technicals killing its two occupants.[1] Teziev also led a militia unit during the Ossetian-Ingush conflict.[citation needed]
Shortly afterwards Teziev was approached in Vladikavkaz in 1989 and offered to be the minister of defense for South Ossetia,then still the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. Besides the Parliament of South Ossetia,the militias where the only other functioning organ of state,making Teziev one of the most important people in the autonomy. Teziev organized every district of Tskhinvali to raise its own company of militia complete with a command structure,and personally outfitted them out of his own pocket. Later in 1989 Teziev would begin to fight a series of skirmishes against both the Soviet Government which rejected South Ossetia's autonomy,and local Georgian militias called Forest Brothers raised from ethnically Georgian villages in South Ossetia and supported by Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Teziev would work to make a unified central military command for all the Ossetian militias,as well as raise a South Ossetian OMON unit,commanded by Colonel Vadim Gazzaev. Teziev's militias eventually usurped power from the Georgian Police,with the locals coming to them to settle legal disputes and apprehend criminals. In an effort to professionalize the militias into an actual army,Teziev modeled the militia units after the Soviet Airborne Forces,and built them on the premise of fighting a guerilla war in depth with little supplies and began raiding Georgian artillery positions.[1]
After the Soviet Union was finally dissolved in 1991 most of the equipment reserves in the region where seized by generals and sold off,and the Russian units in South Ossetia withdrew,leaving Teziev to largely supply his militias off equipment he bought from the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. During his effort to procure weapons Teziev worked with the North Ossetian Mafia,but broke off relations after they attempted to kill him. Teziev also claimed to have made three dummy nuclear bombs made of trace amounts of plutonium to register on a geiger counter in an effort to stave off a Georgian action against South Ossetia. He proclaimed that he had planted one in Tskhinvali,one in Tbilisi,and one in Java. Then he had two foreign journalists,a German and a Japanese,kidnapped,showed one of the fake bombs,and then released. He claimed that the staged nukes were to try and draw Russian and foreign interest into the conflict in South Ossetia. Teziev's forces also raided Russian armories and distributed weapons and ammunition to anyone who asked that spoke Ossetian. Teziev's tenure as Defense Minister would end after the Sochi agreement when Russian authorities moved into the country and threatened to have Teziev arrested for his role in the looting of the armories.[1]
During the Russo-Georgian War Teziev once again served as a commander and claimed to have witnessed Georgian troops throwing grenades into basements full of civilians.[2]
Prime minister
Teziev served as the first prime minister of South Ossetia,starting on 28 November 1991 as an Independent. As the Republic's Head of government,he accepted the JPKF,a joint peacekeeping force of Georgians and Russians,into the Republic while also stating that the ultimate goal of South Ossetia was its annexation into Russia,sooner rather than later.[3]
"The issue of joining South Ossetia to Russia is of secondary importance here. The reunification of the two Ossetians is important for the Ossetians. Today, there are only a few nations left in the world that are internally divided (for example, North and South Korea). Ossetia, divided into two territories due to certain historical circumstances, belongs to the same category. I would like with all my heart to wish for the unification to happen as quickly as possible"
After leaving office, Teziev served as chairman of Civic Initiative, a Vladikavkaz-based support group for South Ossetian refugees into North Ossetia. As chairman, Teziev commented on why Ossetians don't want to return to Georgia proper, stating that "Refugees don't trust the law or Georgian authorities," and that "Most of them have settled down in North Ossetia. Their children go to Russian schools and are being raised in another cultural environment."[5]
Teziev was a leader of the so-called "Moscow Opposition", consisting of South Ossetians who moved to Russia after the South Ossetia war but returned after the Russo-Georgian War and were discontent with policies of Eduard Kokoity. Teziev helped organize a series of street protests against the Kokoiti administration in 2014.[8]
South Ossetia, officially the Republic of South Ossetia or the State of Alania, is a partially recognised landlocked country in the South Caucasus. It has an officially stated population of just over 56,500 people (2022), who live in an area of 3,900 square kilometres (1,500 sq mi), with 33,000 living in the capital city, Tskhinvali.
Eduard Dzhabeyevich Kokoyty is an Ossetian politician who served as the second president of South Ossetia of the partially recognized state of South Ossetia from 2001 to 2011.
Tskhinvali or Tskhinval is the capital of the disputed de facto independent Republic of South Ossetia, internationally considered part of Shida Kartli, Georgia. Tskhinvali Region, known historically as Samachablo, was always part of the Georgian state as a single military and administrative entity. It is located on the Great Liakhvi River approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) northwest of the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
The Georgian–Ossetian conflict is an ethno-political conflict over Georgia's former autonomous region of South Ossetia, which evolved in 1989 and developed into a war. Despite a declared ceasefire and numerous peace efforts, the conflict remained unresolved. In August 2008, military tensions and clashes between Georgia and South Ossetian separatists erupted into the Russo-Georgian War. Since then, South Ossetia has been under a de-facto Russian control.
The Georgian–Ossetian conflict of 1918–1920 were a series of uprisings, which took place in the Ossetian-inhabited areas of what is now South Ossetia, a breakaway republic in Georgia, against the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic and then the Menshevik-dominated Democratic Republic of Georgia which claimed several thousand lives and left painful memories among the Georgian and Ossetian communities of the region.
The 1991–1992 South Ossetia War was fought between Georgian government forces and ethnic Georgian militias on one side and the forces of South Ossetian separatists and Russia on the other. The war ended with a Dagomys Agreement, signed on 24 June 1992, which established a joint peacekeeping force and left South Ossetia divided between the rival authorities.
The 58th Guards Combined Arms Army is an army of the Russian Ground Forces, headquartered at Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia-Alania, within Russia's Southern Military District. It was formed in 1941 as part of the Soviet Union's Red Army and has been part of the Russian Army since 1995. It has the Military Unit Number (в/ч) is 47084.
The Battle of Tskhinvali was a fight for the city of Tskhinvali, the capital of the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia. It was the only major battle in the Russo-Georgian War. Georgian ground troops entered the city on early 8 August 2008. After the three-day fierce fighting with South Ossetian militia and Russian troops, Georgian troops finally withdrew from the city on the evening of 10 August. By 11 August, all Georgian troops had left South Ossetia and Russian forces advanced into undisputed Georgia facing no resistance.
The Russo-Georgian War broke out in August 2008 and involved Georgia, Russian Federation, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Khetagurovo is a 150-house village in South Ossetia, de facto independent partially recognized republic in the South Caucasus, formerly the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. The village has been controlled by the South Ossetian forces since the armed clashes with the Georgian troops in 1991/1992. Until 1991 village was part of Tskhinvali district, Gori municipality. Sakrebulo center.
This article describes the background of the Russo-Georgian War.
The Armed Forces of South Ossetia is the military of the partially recognised state of South Ossetia. It includes an Army and an Air Corps.
The Russo-Georgian War had a huge humanitarian impact on the lives of civilians. In the aftermath of the war, ethnic Georgians were expelled from South Ossetia,Georgia and most of the Georgian villages were razed.
The 2008 war between Russia and Georgia created controversy, with both sides blaming each other for starting the war.
Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia was a mass expulsion of ethnic Georgians conducted in South Ossetia and other territories occupied by Russian and South Ossetian forces, which happened during and after the 2008 Russia–Georgia war. Overall, at least 20,000 Georgians were forcibly displaced from South Ossetia.
The Parliament of South Ossetia is the unicameral legislature of the partially recognized Republic of South Ossetia. The 34 members of parliament are elected using a mixed system of Party-list proportional representation (17) and single-member districts (17). South Ossetia has a multi-party system, and currently 5 political parties are represented in parliament and has 6 independent MPs elected through single-member districts. The parliament is headed by a speaker, who is elected from among the members. Since 15 September 2022 the speaker of parliament is Alan Alborov, one of the four deputees of the Nykhaz party of president Alan Gagloev, after Alan Tadtaev of United Ossetia was forced to resign.
Valeriy Nikolaevich Khubulov was a South Ossetian politician, who was minister of defense and acting prime minister in 1996. He was assassinated in 1998 while in Russia.
South Ossetia is a partially recognised landlocked state, approximately 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) above sea level on the slopes of the Greater Caucasus. Although it declared independence in 2008, only a few countries acknowledge it. The region is inhabited by Ossetians, an Iranian ethnic group. According to Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria and Nauru, it is one of the world's newest independent states. All other states and international organisations consider South Ossetia a part of Georgia, functioning as a de facto state for twenty years after declaring independence and conducting a successful armed rebellion. Its Georgian inhabitants have been displaced. South Ossetia has been a source of tension for a number of years, with Georgia and Russia's political differences impeding peaceful independence and breeding a turbulent series of events which undermine the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Alan Eduardovich Gagloev, also transliterated as Gagloyev, is a South Ossetian politician and former intelligence officer, who is the fifth and current president of South Ossetia since 2022. He also served as chairman of the Nykhaz party from 2020 to 2023.
The Truso Gorge is a disputed gorge in northeastern Georgia that the Russian backed separatist state of South Ossetia, as well as the Russian subject of North Ossetia claim as "historically eastern Ossetian lands."
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