In this paper, I explore local effects of Russian border-making practices between the occupied territory of South Ossetia and Georgian controlled territory. Through the installation of physical barriers and symbolic gestures, such as signposts, fences and patrolling border guards, a previously invisible and elastic administrative boundary line is gradually being turned into a de-facto international border. Moreover, these activities are accompanied by instances of what is locally described as “creeping occupation” – the step-by-step moving of fences and barbed wire further into Georgian controlled land and seizing of more Georgian territory. The border-drawing practices have grave effects on the lives and livelihoods of borderland communities. Some families have already experienced being cut off, or displaced, from their native farmlands, gardens and orchards, and others live with the fear and risk that this might happen at any time. This ongoing uncertainty presents local families with a number of dilemmas: In a regional context traditionally characterised by close-knit kinship-based communities, should youth be encouraged to stay on the ancestral land and preserve territorial continuity? Are they obliged to act as “human shields” against the moving border, as one young woman proudly described it? Or, should individuals and families seek more sustainable security and long term preservation by pursuing education-, job- and marriage- opportunities beyond the local community? Are the futures of families and kin groups better cared for by cutting traditional connections with the land? Based on fieldwork in borderland villages, I examine how, and to which effect, such tensions reconfigure relationships between community, ancestral land and kinship obligations.