The objective of the study is to identify the problems and prospects for the settlement of the Georgian-South Ossetian confrontation after the armed conflict in South Ossetia in 2008. The use of the symbiosis of systemic methodological and neo-institutional approaches as the research methods contributed to the identification of a number of important contradictions between the immediate parties to the conflict that affect the process of its settlement, ranging from humanitarian and security issues to political confrontation.