While South Ossetia has declared itself a nation independent of Georgia (much to Georgia's ire), it seems to be more reliant on Russian foreign aid and military assistance more than ever.
Thousands of Russian troops guard both the country and it's borders, and "Russian aid compromises 99% of South Ossetia's budget since 2008." This is obviously not the mark of a healthy, independent nation but that of a satellite state that would decay into a 3rd world state if foreign aid were ever cut off.
This of course is an understandable situation for a war torn country that broke off and became independent only years ago. Unfortunantly, corruption stains the government of South Ossetia, to the point where elections are dangerous especially for the candidate opposing the Russian-backed leader. Alla Dzhioeva won the elections that were held in November of 2011, but Anatoli Bibilov maintained Russian support even if more than 50% of the population voted for Dzhioeva. Eventually, the supreme court ruled in favor of Anatoli and Dzhioeva argued against this, demanding inauguration by February 10th. Oddly enough, she was attacked by masked men soon after this, and remains hospitalized at this time. By no means does this incriminate Russia, as Dzhioeva was very pro Russia and pro Putin. However, the people of South Ossetia now harbour some level of suspicions against their benevolent providers, as they realize that Russia is not always a "honest broker".
Georgia still has no part in what they consider Russian occupied territory, and relations are as poor as ever for them. It seems that the fate and future of the relatively new independant South Ossetia lies not in the hands of it's people and politicians, but at the Kremlin.
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