@Konyok:
I’ve looked at the map and scratched my head. If the Roki tunnel is the only convenient route through that section of the Greater Caucasus

Well, when one realizes that all three highways across the Greater Caucasus enter from North Ossettia, and recall the pro-Czarist role Ossettians played as a client population, one sees how the Ossetians (speaking an Iranian language related to Pashtun-!) depend on their Russian masters.

By the way, the Czarist Ossettian Okrug in Georgia was upgraded by Stalin to an Autonomous Region, contradicting smears by “supercargo” and others that Georgians somehow benefited from Stalin’s rule by divide and kill.

The three Czarist military highways across the Greater Caucasus enter Georgia at:
1) Mamison Pass, down into Oni and finally Kutaisi, opening on the plain to the Black Sea.
2) Roki Pass, now tunnel, down into Java, Kurti, Tskhinvali and the central plain around Gori
3) The ancient route through the Darial Gorge, up over the Cross Pass and down past Godari, the Zhinvali reservoir, Dusheti and into Mtskheta and Tbilisi.

Only the route from Roki enters South “Ossettian” territory.

To get to Akhmeta and Kvareli where much of the best wine is made, the Russkies would have to cross a bunch of mountains, the least at Mtskheta-Tbilisi or come up from Armenia.

Air cover. Georgia needs air cover at least over areas under its control.