What about those other protests?

Vano Shlamov/AFP/Getty Images

Situation in Ukraine and Russia

The focus of most American political media has been on the protests on college campuses over the last few weeks. There is another set of protests that deserve our attention as well.

A few weeks ago, I briefly mentioned the protests in Georgia, which began on April 17^th. They have not subsided, and the government has not given in, so the protests have reached an inflection point for the country of Georgia. Like much of what happens in the countries of the former Soviet Union, Russia has a role to play and it’s mostly what the protests say about Russia’s influence in the region that I’m interested in discussing here. 

Here’s some brief context. Georgia, like Ukraine, faced the choice of getting closer to the West, Russia or trying to balance between the two. Like Ukraine, it has gone back and forth since its independence. In the early to mid 2000s it was beginning to move closer to the West. Under then president Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia supported the U.S. war in Iraq, received aid from the U.S. and appeared to be moving toward NATO and EU membership. There is even a road in the capital, Tbilisi, named after George W. Bush. 

All of this began to change in August of 2008, when fighting erupted in the Georgian region of South Ossetia (directly across the border from the Russian region of North Ossetia). You can read more about the conflict here if you are interested. The fighting ended after five days and resulted in a so-called “frozen conflict.” A conflict where the underlying issue has not been resolved but fighting has ceased. 

The effect for Georgia is that it could not fully be integrated into the West due to this lingering issue. Russian presence on Georgian soil also provided Russia with a way to influence Georgian politics and threaten escalation at any time. Georgian politics has been dominated by what to do about South Ossetia, Russia, and the West since then. This is essentially the playbook Russia followed in Ukraine in 2014, just on a much greater scale. 

This brings us to the present, where the party of power in Georgia is Georgian Dream. It is a pro-Russian party, and its leader Bidzina Ivanishvili is a billionaire with ties to Russia. The government is attempting to pass a law that would require non-governmental organizations and media outlets that receive more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register with the government and face greater regulations. On the face of it, the law may not seem too onerous. But it is modeled after a law in Russia that has been used to crack down on civil society. In Russia, the government has used the financial reporting requirement to shut down organizations and news outlets on technicalities. The actions are not about compliance with the law but about oppressing criticism and opposition to Putin. 

The protestors in Georgia know that is how it will be used in Georgia as well. When the government attempted this a few years ago, protestors came out and the government backed down. This time the government seems determined to pass the law, and the protestors seem equally determined to prevent its passage. The standoff has been going on for over two weeks and the government has used increasingly more violent tactics to put down the protests. The police have used water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades in their attempt to calm things down.  

I find this situation interesting for several reasons. First, it demonstrates that Ukraine is not the only country around Russia that suffers from Russia’s influence and the choice to get closer to Russia or the West. The Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) made their choice early and are fully integrated into the West as members of NATO and the EU. Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Armenia are still to be determined. The Central Asian countries are torn between Russia and China. Russia’s involvement in Ukraine has resulted in fewer resources they can use to influence these other countries. When protests broke out in Kazakhstan in January of 2022, Russia sent “peacekeepers” to help suppress the unrest. Russia has no such ability to help the Georgian Dream government now.  

Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine has definitively weakened its influence in the countries surrounding it, which Russia refers to as its “near abroad” and claims to have influence over. Russian “peacekeepers” were pulled out of Nagorno-Karabakh on April 17, the same day the protests in Georgia began. It seems very unlikely they will be able to interfere militarily in Georgia. 

A second reason I find this interesting is that it could realistically result in a change in government in Georgia, toward a government more friendly to Ukraine. There are three likely outcomes in situations like this: reform, repression, revolution. The Georgian government is attempting repression and, if successful, Georgian society could become less open and resemble Russia more and more. But there is a very real chance that “revolution” may occur, meaning the ousting of the current government. Georgia experienced their own color revolution, the Rose Revolution, in 2003. There is precedent for this type of action and the protests are massive. The anti-Russian sentiment has been growing since the invasion of Ukraine, spurred on by the large number of Russians who have fled Russia to Georgia. The backlash against these Russians have caused many of them to leave Georgia and return to Russia. 

The overthrow of a Putin friendly government in Georgia and the establishment of one more friendly to Ukraine would be a major loss to Putin. This is what his foreign policy is geared around. He wants to prevent free societies that have strong ties to the West, in the near abroad. He wants closed societies that are dependent on Russia. A Georgia that is supportive of NATO and Ukraine will make Russian victory in Ukraine less likely. And it will be another sign of just how much of a strategic disaster his invasion of Ukraine was.  

One more thing of note from this week is that the state department has formally accused Russia of using chemical weapons in Ukraine. The use of chemical weapons was first reported several weeks ago by the Telegraph. Russia has used chloropicrin, a choking agent, which is banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention. Partially in response, the U.S. announced that it was sanctioning over 280 people and entities in Russia. The public acknowledgement of Russia’s use of chemical weapons is just another piece of evidence of Russia’s illegal and brutal tactics during the war. It should have an impact, but it will not. I fear it is too easy to ignore the atrocities being committed. The amount of war crimes is staggering. The map below was developed by the EU just a few months into the conflict. So much more has happened in the last two years.

There is no relevant election news this week either. But next week we will discuss the upcoming elections in Lithuania.