1 Rouble 5th Anniversary of Independence

South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia in August 2008, backed immediately by Russian military intervention following the Five-Day War. The declaration has never been recognized by the United Nations or any Western government — only Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, and Syria have extended formal recognition. These numismatic issues therefore occupy a legally ambiguous category: produced under a de facto state, accepted nowhere as currency, and distributed almost entirely through the collector market.

The fifth anniversary falls in 2013, placing this strike exactly five years after a conflict in which Georgian forces, Russian troops, and South Ossetian militia fought across a region smaller than Luxembourg.