Around the Georgian village of Khurvaleti, Russia’s occupation can creep forward a few yards at a time, often in the middle of the night. It often starts with a line ploughed across a field. Then a green sign will materialise, warning people not to cross. Then the concertina wire appears.
Khurvaleti is at the southern edge of South Ossetia, a breakaway region occupied by Russian troops since a five-day war with Georgia in 2008, in what proved to be a dress rehearsal for Ukraine. Now on the defensive after Putin’s botched Ukraine invasion, Moscow has shifted troops and equipment from Ossetia.
