Tensions increased following the election of Mikheil Saakashvili as Georgian President in 2004, with Saakashvili vowing to restore Georgian control over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia, Ajaria and South Ossetia. In 2008 Georgia attempted to wrest back South Ossetia, sparking a war with Russia which ended with Georgia's defeat and the expansion of Ossetian control to the full territory of the former South Ossetia AO.