After the elections in October, Georgia can restore diplomatic relations with Russia. But the country cannot become a pro-Kremlin satellite, believes Ivan Preobrazhensky.
Georgian authorities are dealing with the attempted coup that opposition sympathizers with Ukraine were allegedly ready to carry out in the country. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze is threatening war with Russia if his party loses power. In the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, although Georgia did not ask for it, talked about the country's possible accession to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and Senator Andrey Klimov said that Russia could provide military assistance to the Georgian authorities.
How does all of this correspond to the fact that diplomatic relations between the two countries were broken back in 2008 because of the war, and the Russian military continues the occupation of Abkhazia and North Ossetia?
Elections on the Russian model
On October 26, parliamentary elections will be held in Georgia and the ruling party “Georgian Dream" openly demonstrated his willingness to hold on to power by any means. This year, for example, despite numerous protests in the country, a law on "foreign agents" similar to the Russian one was passed.
Recently, the Georgian authorities announced that an attempt was prevented against the main sponsor and informal leader of the ruling party, Bidzina Ivanishvili - an entrepreneur who has long had business ties with Russia. The Kremlin was quick to condemn this "attempted assassination", for which former associates of Mikheil Saakashvili, including former representatives of the security services who are now helping Ukraine, are accused.
Against the background of the failed attempts against the prime minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, and against the US presidential candidate, Donald Trump, the news from Georgia does not seem so incredible. Prime Minister Kobakhidze even decided to play conspiracy theory and stated that the assassination attempt against Ivanishvili was prepared by the same forces that organized the attacks in Slovakia and the USA - without unnecessarily focusing on the fact that the perpetrators of these two assassination attempts acted independently . However, the more significant difference is that there was no attempt in Georgia, respectively the opposition naturally talks about fictional crimes and real pre-election repressions.
Diplomatic relations may be restored
As for the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization, for example, it has not helped Armenia at all either in maintaining control over Nagorno-Karabakh or in its border conflict with Azerbaijan.
However, Russian officials are now unequivocally inviting Georgia to join the treaty. In such a case, Russia, according to their logic, will provide the Georgian authorities with help against those mysterious forces that had organized the assassination attempts against Fico and Trump, and now against Ivanishvili.
Georgia is understandably silent - the scheme is completely unrealistic, whatever they think in Moscow. At least until then, as long as Russia continues to occupy Georgian territory and keep its soldiers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
However, there is another path to normalization - the resumption of diplomatic relations despite the occupation. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze says his country wants to restore its territorial integrity peacefully. And for that, negotiations are needed, for which diplomats are needed. In this situation, the rumors that after the parliamentary elections “Georgian dream" will restore diplomatic relations with Russia seem entirely plausible.
Georgia is not Kyrgyzstan
Russian oppositionists, who left en masse for Georgia after the start of the war against Ukraine, are now just as en masse packing their bags and looking for a safer refuge. Georgia is no longer letting them back into its territory, and now there are fears that it may start sending them back to Russia just as en masse, where they face criminal cases for discrediting the army and perhaps even for treason. The Georgian opposition, whose chances of winning the upcoming elections are not great, will obviously face new repressions.
If not this year, then next year, nothing prevents Ivanishvili's party, which has monopolized power in the country, from restoring diplomatic relations with Russia. And it seems as if Georgia is rapidly becoming a Russian satellite - similar to Kyrgyzstan, where civil rights and freedoms are severely restricted under Russian influence.
But the occupied territories remain an insurmountable obstacle for Ivanishvili or any other politician who wants to lean on the Kremlin. The Russian authorities will never return the conquered voluntarily. The Georgian people will not agree to such a concession either, making any pro-Russian authoritarian regime look unsustainable in the long term.