OPINION — As the crisis and political showdown in Georgia enters its third week, both sides appear to be digging in. Despite cold weather and a security crackdown – including water, cannon, teargas and widespread arrests – demonstrators have continued their nightly protests against the government; and the government and its security forces show no signs of giving in.
As The Cipher Brief has reported, the struggle in Georgia is the latest global frontline pitting Russia against the West. It was sparked most recently by the pro-Russia ruling party’s suspension of talks on Georgia’s ascension into the European Union (EU), but the animosity traces to earlier events this year: an October election in which the ruling party, Georgian Dream, claimed victory, and which the opposition and Western nations say was fraudulent; and a so-called foreign agents law, modeled on a Russian measure that critics say was used to crack down on dissent.
Ia Meurmishvil is The Cipher Brief’s chief international correspondent and a native of Georgia. She spoke with Cipher Brief CEO Suzanne Kelly for an episode of The World Deciphered about the nation that has become a “battleground” between Russia and the West. “Everything hinges on Georgia,” Meurmishvili said. “And I’m not saying it because I’m of Georgian origin, but because it’s a battleground.”
Their interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Kelly: It’s nearly two weeks now that protesters have been in the streets of Georgia. How do you see this situation evolving?
Meurmishvili: Protesters have been out nonstop, day in and day out, basically starting from November 29th, a day after the prime minister announced that Georgia was halting its European aspirations for four years. The prime minister said the government will not pursue any European integration measures until 2028, and that really caused the turmoil in the country.
Mind you, just a month before that, Georgia had very contested parliamentary elections that have not been recognized by any of Georgia’s Western partners, including the United States, and the E.U. So with this contested election background, a month after that, the prime minister says that Georgia is changing its foreign policy orientation. That has generated tremendous anger, especially among the young people. So they are the ones who are still out in the streets of Tbilisi and some 43 other cities and villages in the country. It’s unprecedented for Georgia to have the entire country basically demonstrating.
How this can evolve and where this can go, nobody knows really. The government is pursuing this tactic to get the demonstrators tired, get them exhausted. It’s cold in Georgia right now, so the government riot police is using water cannons, pepper spray — and in the cold weather getting soaked by the water cannon is not a pleasant thing, I would imagine. So some of these tactics are probably meant to wear them down and get them tired, but the demonstrators don’t seem to be affected by this. They are demanding that the government calls for new elections to reelect a different parliament. And if there is a new parliament in the country, not the one that’s contested and disputed and dominated by the ruling party, then Georgia still has a chance to continue its path to the EU.
Kelly: What has the U.S. position been so far? And what do Georgians expect, or would want to see, from the United States?
Meurmishvili: The U.S. has had a strategic partnership with Georgia since 2009. About a month ago the U.S. announced that it’s stopping the strategic partnership, as a result of a policy review that Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken made in March of this year. Over time, the U.S. has been signaling to the Georgian Dream party’s government that we’re not very happy with the way our relationship and partnership is evolving. Maybe we should do something about it. And in response, the Georgian Dream government has been doing nothing but insulting, and rejecting all these overtures from Washington. The Georgian government has been very dismissive and very insulting towards the U.S. ambassador to Georgia, both the previous ambassador and the current one as well.
And the government and the parliament also approved the so-called “foreign agent” law this spring, which was a really big red flag not only for the U.S. government, but everybody in the West, the EU, the individual European countries. So that’s when the U.S. government announced this policy review towards Georgia.
They’ve sanctioned four individual judges and people related to the justice system. They’ve also introduced travel restrictions or visa restrictions for some of the individuals who are involved in efforts to derail Georgian democracy.
Now there’s a big expectation from everybody in Georgia, the government, and the opposition that the U.S. will announce personal financial sanctions against, in particular, the richest person in the country, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his billions in Russia in the 1990s. And he’s basically the kingmaker in the country. He’s appointing prime ministers. He rules the country from behind the curtains without having any public accountability. Long story short, the U.S. has been very closely involved. And still many people in Georgia are relying on the United States coming out and saying that the U.S. will financially sanction all involved in using force against the demonstrators and basically derailing Georgia’s democracy.
Kelly: Georgia’s president recently met with President-elect Trump when he was in Paris. What’s the significance of that meeting, do you think?
Meurmishvili: I think it was very important. Despite all these tensions and the unprecedented destruction of the relationship between the U.S. and Georgia, the Georgian Dream government somehow still pushes this narrative that come January 20th when Donald Trump becomes the U.S. president, the Georgia-U.S. relationship will go back to normal and it’s going to be even better than before. Now we don’t know what they are basing this on, because there has not been any public record, on the Georgian Dream side or on the Trump transition team side, of a phone conversation or some sort of meaningful contact between the government and Trump.
So the fact that President Salome Zourabichvili, who’s the last directly elected president of Georgia, who has this tremendous legitimacy and support, especially from the young people nowadays, the fact that she met with President Trump and had an in-depth conversation about stolen elections, is very significant. And to underline — in the context of President Trump — her saying that elections were “stolen,” I think that she chose her words very carefully.
We don’t know exactly what they talked about, but the fact that the president, who represents opposition to the ruling Georgian Dream Party, met with President-elect Trump first, I think, is very significant.
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Kelly: Just to show how complicated the nature of this relationship is, Georgia’s prime minister traveled not once, but twice to Tehran recently. Can you explain how that might impact future relations between the U.S. and Georgia?
Meurmishvili: That’s very interesting and important. The Georgian Dream government keeps saying that somehow, miraculously after January 20th, the U.S. and Georgia will start this relationship from a clean page, that the U.S. is not going to remember any of the insults or attacks on U.S. representatives in Georgia, and all the accusations that the U.S. is trying to make a revolution in Georgia. So they are somehow trying to relate that only to the Biden administration, and think that once Trump comes in, somehow the institutions and the organizational memory will forget everything else that Georgian Dream did. And what you mentioned about Iran is in that category.
President Trump will have Iran as one of his main foreign policy challenges. Another is China, of course. And in the same context, earlier this year, Georgia signed a strategic partnership with China. And it happened before the United States stopped or suspended its strategic partnership with Georgia. So Georgia chose to be a strategic partner for both the United States and China, which I don’t think President Trump, at least from my understanding, would welcome.
Traveling to Iran was very bad optics for the Georgian Dream. I don’t know how they will recover from it, when it comes to making overtures or establishing good, healthy relations with the Trump administration. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze was standing right next to the Hezbollah and Hamas leaders. Some of them, by the way, are no longer alive. And the first time he traveled to Tehran [was] to be at the funeral of President Ebrahim Raisi who, as you know, died in May in a helicopter crash. And subsequently there was another trip shortly after that.
Georgia is thinking that it needs to navigate this very complex region and play with all the players, including China, potentially Iran, and definitely not agitate Russia in all this. But how that’s going to work out for Georgia, it’s really unknown. And to navigate this, you really need a government that’s experienced and understands all the complexities and nuance.
Kelly: When we’re thinking about Russian influence in Georgia and in the region, what do you think the opportunities will be with a new U.S. administration coming into power in January? What do you think the opportunities will be to counter the Russian influence that is so pervasive in the entire region, not just Georgia?
Meurmishvili: I think this period presents a tremendous opportunity for anything related to democracy and Western values, against what Russia is trying to push out in the region. In this past month, it’s also important for us to remember what’s happened when it comes to Russia’s influence in the region. Russia basically lost Syria and, together with Syria, potentially even the eastern Mediterranean. So we’ll see how that goes, but Russia definitely has a weakened position in that region.
We saw what happened in Moldova, with all of its hybrid efforts that Russia used before or in the leadup to the Moldovan election. Pro-European forces won in Moldova. Moldova still has parliamentary elections coming up in April, so we’ll see how that goes. But at least thus far, Russia was pushed back in Moldova. And we’re seeing what’s happening in Romania. Romania is also very important, given the fact that Russia and potentially China tried very hard to have this candidate emerge and be the lead and potentially be elected as the president of the country, who eventually did not make it. The Supreme Court basically annulled the results of the first round in which the Russia-supported candidate was winning. So that’s another loss for Russia.
Now all eyes are on Georgia in this regard, to be honest, because everything is done by the Russian playbook in Georgia. The way law enforcement is using force against the demonstrators, the way they are arresting people, the methods they are using to frighten the youth, to control some of the elites of the country — exactly the same way you would see it in Russia, and exactly the same way we saw it unfold in Belarus in 2020. In Belarus the opposition had to flee, but in Georgia the opposition is not thinking about fleeing. So the opportunities that you ask about I think really are tremendous, as long as the West acts promptly and shows its support to the Georgian people who are in the streets, and the Georgian president who represents the Georgian people, who is basically the only legitimate institution in the country left today.
Supporting Georgia would be a democratic advancement of some sort in Georgia, and defeat of the Russian narratives and pro-Russian government in Georgia would be a very big step forward for the region, because many things depend on how Georgia goes. If Georgia falls or if Russia dominates Georgia after these demonstrations, we don’t know if it will have impact on Moldova’s April elections. We don’t know what impact it’s going to have on some other Black Sea countries, Romania, Bulgaria, Armenia, Azerbaijan. So everything hinges on Georgia. And I’m not saying it because I’m of Georgian origin, but because it’s a battleground. Georgia today is a battleground between Russia and the West. Russia is flipping governments, or trying to flip governments in its immediate surroundings, especially as it wages this war in Ukraine. And Russia needs small victories. Georgia would be a very small victory for the West against Russia, but for Russia, Georgia will be a very big take in this fight against the West. And that’s exactly how Russia is looking at this fight against the West.
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