Another serious blow was the August 2008 five-day war with Russia over the Georgian separatist region of South Ossetia.
VOA: standard.2009.09.01
And he has a decent foreign-policy record, from taking France back into NATO's military structure to his intervention in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war and his joint leadership of the campaign against Libya.
Georgia and Russia have maintained an uneasy peace since their war in 2008, which saw Georgian forces driven back from both Abkhazia and a second breakaway region, South Ossetia.
Russia and Georgia fought a five-day war in August 2008 over the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia -- the first time Russia sent troops abroad to fight since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.