The five years since Georgia`s peaceful `Rose Revolution` have been marked by significant reforms, internal political turmoil and war with giant northern neighbour Russia.

President Mikheil Saakashvili has been lauded in the West for democratic and economic reforms, but simmering discontent has increased since the August war, in which some opponents judge him to have acted rashly.

Herewith a chronology of major events since the Rose Revolution:

- Mid-Nov: Opposition parties launch protests after parliamentary elections are denounced by local and international observers as rigged.

- Nov 22-23: Opposition supporters led by Saakashvili enter parliament, roses in their hands, as then-president Eduard Shevardnadze convenes a new session. Shevardnadze escapes and later declares a state of emergency. The next day, amid growing international pressure, the veteran Georgian leader resigns.

- Jan 4: Saakashvili wins a landslide victory in presidential elections.

- March 28: Saakashvili`s United National Movement party overwhelmingly wins new parliamentary elections.

- May: Saakashvili`s government peacefully retakes control over the Black Sea region of Adjara as its local pro-Russian strongman, Aslan Abashidze, flees the country.

- Aug 10: The first barrels of oil reach Georgia through the strategic Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which delivers Caspian oil to Turkey and Europe bypassing Russia.

- Jan: Saakashvili accuses Moscow of `sabotage` after gas and electricity supplies are temporarily cut off from Russia to Georgia.

- Sept 27: Georgian intelligence arrests four Russian military personnel on spying charges. Moscow responds with sweeping economic sanctions, cutting all travel links, deporting hundreds of ethnic Georgians, and stopping key Georgian imports of wine and mineral water.

- March 13: The Georgian parliament approves a bill supporting Georgia`s bid to join NATO.

- Aug 6: Georgia claims a Russian fighter jet fires an air-to-surface missile near the village of Tsitelubani, which Moscow denies.

- Sept 25: Georgia`s former defense minister, Irakli Okruashvili, accuses Saakashvili of `ordering murders` of political opponents and is subsequently arrested.

- Nov 2: Tens of thousands take to the streets in anti-government protests and demand early presidential and parliamentary elections.

- Nov 7: Saakashvili imposes a state of emergency after riot police violently disperse opposition protesters and the pro-opposition Imedi television station is shut down in a police raid.

- Nov 8: Saakashvili announces snap presidential election.

- Jan 5: Saakashvili wins snap presidential election.

- April 4: NATO leaders at a summit in Bucharest postpone granting Georgia a Membership Action Plan (MAP) that would put it on the fast track to membership, but say the country will join the alliance one day.

- April 16: Russia establishes formal ties with separatist authorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

- May 21: Saakashvili`s United National Movement party wins an overwhelming majority in parliamentary elections.

- Aug 7: After days of rising tensions and mutual accusations of attacks, Saakashvili launches a military offensive to seize control of South Ossetia.

- Aug 8-10: Russia pours troops and tanks deep inside Georgia, bombs targets across the country and occupies swathes of its territory.

- Aug 12: French President Nicolas Sarkozy, representing the European Union, brokers a ceasefire accord. The UN says 100,000 people have been displaced by the conflict.

- Aug 26: Russia recognises Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states drawing condemnation from the West.

- Oct 10: Russia withdraws troops from the buffer zones near Abkhazia and South Ossetia but says 7,600 soldiers will be kept in the two regions.