By NuNu Japaridze, CNN Producer

(CNN) - Russia’s neighboring post-Soviet country initiates democratic reforms in order to establish closer ties with Europe and U.S. It takes concrete steps to join the NATO alliance.

That doesn’t sit well with the Russian president, who warns NATO against allowing it. Russia then mounts political and economic pressure on the country in order to bring it back into the Russian sphere of influence. When that doesn’t work, Russia eventually invades the neighboring country under the pretext of defending ethnic Russians living there.

If you think that summarizes the current situation in Ukraine, you are mistaken – this all took place five years ago when Russia invaded Georgia, another post-Soviet state.

While it certainly feels like history repeating itself, here are five similarities and five differences between what happened in 2008 and what is currently taking place in Ukraine:

FULL POST