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PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
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  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
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RECOMMENDED
  • A Rock and a Hard Place: The Russian Opposition in a Time of War | New Voices on Eurasia with Jeremy Ladd (April 11)

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  • PONARS Eurasia Spring Policy Conference (March 3)

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  • Ukrainathon 2023 (Feb. 24-25)

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RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
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  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
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  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

New Ambiguity in Georgian-Russian Relations

  • April 2, 2013
  • Sufian Zhemukhov

Relations between Russia and Georgia are going through some changes after the new government came to power in Georgia. If before, Saakashvili and Putin/Medvedev had been exercising a policy of pure hostility toward each other, the new Georgian policy is to persuade a reluctant Russia of Georgia's good intentions. Two recent news items, contradicting each other, demonstrate the new ambiguity in Georgian-Russian relations. From one side, Georgian NGOs visited Kabardino-Balkaria last month, developing connections with pro-Kremlin Circassian NGOs in Russia that had recently established contacts of their own in Tbilisi. During that visit to Tbilisi, one of the Circassian delegates made a statement against the Georgian Parliament’s recognition of the Circassian genocide in 2011, but other Circassian delegates dismissed it as his personal opinion and criticized it. However, the recent visit of the Georgian delegation looks like another step toward preparation of grounds for abolishing the Georgian Parliament's resolution. In a second development in March, Ingush leader Yunus-bek Evkurov made a statement about the effective measures he has taken to avoid any danger of a possible Georgian invasion into Russia via Ingushetia's borders.

I asked Solomon Lebanidze (Tbilisi State University) to comment on these contradictions: "I thought that Evkurov was rather late to announce that Georgian-Ingush borders are safely locked down. Even before the Georgian Dream political coalition came to power, relations between Georgia and the North Caucasus were developing dynamically. Though those were not official relations, Ingush society and Georgian NGOs have been communicating and broadening their contacts for some time already. What are those statements about sealed Georgian-Ingush borders for, if Georgia never militarily threatened Ingushetia? Our people do not need such sealed borders.

As for the experts from Georgian NGOs that visited the North Caucasus, they represent different organizations that have different approaches towards the development of Georgian-Russian relations. Among them, only the "Institute of Eurasia" is a pro-Russian NGO that promotes abolishing the Georgian Parliament's resolution recognizing the Circassian genocide. Other experts in the delegation have different opinions. I met with one of the experts after his visit to Russia and found that we were in complete agreement in understanding the problems of the North Caucasus and of the Circassian question. We have not abandoned these positions with the change in government."

Sufian Zhemukhov is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES), George Washington University, blogging for PONARS Eurasia on the Caucasus.

Related Topics
  • Caucasus
  • Georgia
  • Russia
  • Zhemukhov
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