A demographic invasion of a region that never belonged to Georgia in the first place? Ossetia was a part of Russian Empire separate from Georgia, it was Stalin who split it into North and South.
Actually this will drive the NATO members away from accepting Georgia, no one wants to actually enact the mutual defense pact and Georgia is a powderkeg. In either case Russia will respond adequately to the threats presented even if it means NATO expansion, if NATO expands into Georgia we will react to that once it happens which I highly doubt it will especially now.
Im not painting Georgia under glorious motherland light, I am painting Kosovo as such, hilarious or not that is how I feel about the issue and thats how most of my people feel about it. Pan-Slavism has never really died, how is it at odds with recent history exactly? Yes Yeltsin was a swine he sold out the Serbs, but that doesn't mean that we'll allow that to happen again, we help our brothers. Even in the Kosovo war there were thousands of Russian volunteers fighting for the Serbian, for our side. Plus this all started way before Kosovo. Im not sure yet but the Cossacks have been asking to mobilize for years now, I think they'll volunteer themselves in this conflict as well.
The people of Ossetia are "russians" because Russia gave them free russian passeports. This is akin to the american government offering american nationality to Cubans, then stepping in Cuba gun blazing, to defend them from the "evil cuban government". Its not a legitimate methode.
Georgia rightly think it is being abused when Russia is working to dissociate Ossetia from the rest of the country. Russia in the same time is also abusing its mission as a peacekeeper there, by maintaining a peaceful statu quo that alows it to safely work toward Ossetia's secession. Maybe Georgia's methodes and strategic decisions were arguably stupid, but Russia is not a savior nor a protector here. Its just another bastard power meddling into a weaker country.
Which by my standards is perfectly fine. It just ticks me off when people like you want to paint the situation under a whole different light. Russia doesnt have moral high ground here.
Panslavism is at odd with recent history, like I said, because if you look at the last century, slavic countries have either suffered under german expensionism, or soviet expensionism. The satelisation of slavic countries by the URSS as been a generational nightmare for the countries affected by it, and as a direct consequence, we ca see how easily western influence, in the form of NATO and EU, can now creep in Russia's traditional neighborhood. So much for slavic solidarity.
Panslavism is just a fairy tale based on outdated notions of blood, race and ethnicity, and indeed, panslavism never manifested itself under any meaningful form, unless you count the tyranical unification forced by the URSS. Meanwhile, westward, European unification is proceeding ahead, and they're on the verge of founding a functional presidency and an unified military and foreign policy. If panslavism isnt dead, where's the equivalent? There isnt. The slaves will join the EU before they get their **** together and form an equivalent institution.
As for Kosovo and Serbia; blame the muslims before you blame the West for what happened. Its not our fault the region got conquered through demographic means by muslims. We just aborted the ethnic cleansing attempt that was going on, as if we could have let such a thing proceed at our doorstep.