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
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Task Forces
    • Ukraine
    • Amplifying Voices of Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia (AVECCA)
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
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
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Task Forces
    • Ukraine
    • Amplifying Voices of Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia (AVECCA)
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • How Foreign Funders Should Strengthen Their Support for Civil Society: A Case Study of USAID in Kazakhstan

    View
  • Clearing the Air: Secretary Blinken Visits Ukraine

    View
  • Ukraine Task Force: Getting Ukraine Right: From Negotiations Trap to Victory

    View
  • Ensuring Genuine Results? A New Electoral Design in Uzbekistan

    View
  • Ukraine, Taiwan, and Macron’s “Strategic Autonomy”

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • 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.
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

The Ukraine Crisis: Repercussions for Georgia

  • September 15, 2014
  • Kornely Kakachia

Russia’s annexation of Crimea is reshaping the geopolitical map of Europe and sending ripples of apprehension across the South Caucasus and wider Black Sea region. Amid Moscow’s direct involvement in eastern Ukraine, many Georgians are closely monitoring all regional foreign policy developments. With a tradition of friendly and strategic relations between Tbilisi and Kyiv, Georgians see the struggle for Ukrainian sovereignty as an analogue of their own fate.

Georgian-Ukrainian Strategic Bonds

Events in Ukraine have made national security a top priority for governments throughout the post-Soviet region. In Georgia, fears that a similar crisis can spread to Georgia have increased. In an April 2014 survey of nearly 4,000 Georgians commissioned by the National Democratic Institute,[1] half of the respondents viewed Russia as “a real and existing threat,” a proportion considerably higher than before the start of the Ukraine crisis in November 2013. The reaction in Georgia has been strongly in support of Ukraine. Tbilisi dispatched political and humanitarian support to Kyiv, including a humanitarian medical mission (vital medicine, equipment, doctors), while hundreds of demonstrators gathered on the streets nightly, waving Ukrainian flags, lighting candles, and singing Ukraine’s national anthem. Some Georgians have even gone to fight in Ukraine to support its territorial integrity.

Although distinct in their origins, Georgia and Ukraine were part of the same states for nearly 200 years. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Georgia was disillusioned by Russia’s tacit support for Georgia’s separatist regions, and Tbilisi had no choice but to be engaged in an unfolding pattern of alliances involving both smaller regional powers and great powers outside of the region. Georgia’s political calculus also included the quest to find fellow states in the immediate neighborhood to rely on as strategic partners. Ultimately, Georgia’s search for “Suliko” (soulmates) in the post-Soviet region resulted in the establishment of strategic relations with the new Ukrainian state. Due to their shared history and similar political and economic conditions, the two states have since reached a high level of political, security, and economic cooperation. The fact that both nations are Orthodox Christian with churches that have been revamping relations with the Moscow Patriarchate has also played a role in cementing their regional bonds.

Despite leadership changes in Georgia and Ukraine, both states have more or less seen themselves as fighting a common battle against Russian domination in the post-Soviet space. Although there are significant internal and external political differences between Georgia and Ukraine, joint efforts resulted in the creation of the GUAM group (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova), which was established partially as an attempt to counterbalance Russia’s influence in the region. Now that Georgia and Ukraine, two Black Sea states, have had democratic revolutions, both have gradually begun to closely identify with the European Union, NATO, and the United States as security partners. As a result, both countries were considered, albeit unsuccessfully, as potential candidates for a Membership Action Plan at NATO’s Bucharest Summit in 2008, strengthening their “solidarity” in a shared Euro-Atlantic destiny. The recent signing of far-reaching Association Agreements with the EU has further reinforced bilateral relations between Georgia and Ukraine, as both countries have now committed themselves to EU standards and, together with Moldova, have bound themselves closer to the West. Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia remain strongly committed to European integration and supporting Western policies. While other Eastern Partnership (EaP) states failed to sign Association Agreements for various reasons, there is hope that eventually the West may see its links with Kyiv, Tbilisi, and Chisinau as strategic allies for the coming decades, in much the same way that the Baltic states were decoupled from the “post-Soviet” framework and completed the process of European and transatlantic integration.

Why the Ukraine Crisis Matters for Georgia

Many in Georgia believe that the actions of Russia in Ukraine are a repeat of what happened in Georgia in August 2008. Distribution of Russian passports, reinforcement of military infrastructure and units, and the decision to protect the “interests of compatriots” with military force are all viewed as a violation of the internal affairs of a sovereign state. There is also a strong conviction that Russia’s moves against Ukraine might have been unsuccessful, or never even begun, had the international community paid more attention to the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. The weak Western reaction to Russia’s invasion of Georgia allowed Moscow to think it could get away with seizing Crimea as well.

While some voices in the West blamed Georgia for provoking its war with Russia and called for more restraint vis-a-vis Moscow, the Ukraine crisis has exposed that whatever tactic the West may prescribe for self-defense, it cannot do much to stop the Kremlin’s imperialist appetite. While the immediate reaction to Russia’s invasion was dealt with differently by Tbilisi and Kyiv, in both cases the end result was practically the same. Military aggression had disastrous consequences for both countries, ending in the occupation of their territories. Meanwhile, the international community still remains unable to get Russia to comply with its obligations to withdraw troops from Georgia’s occupied regions and now Crimea. Subsequently, the Kremlin’s intervention is seen as a serious precedent that raises concerns about the territorial integrity of Georgia.

There is an expectation, however, that the Ukraine crisis may push Western leaders to take decisive steps to find concrete formulas to beef up the Western integration of the region. This would be much in the same way that the Russia-Georgian war prompted the EU to initiate the EaP, which included Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Though membership in the EaP did not contain any promise of eventual EU membership, it played an important role in consolidating the European foreign perspectives of at least Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. 

So far, EU leaders have been unable to bridge their differences in order to deliver tangible plans that could change the geopolitics of the region. For its part, Washington is acknowledging the emerging new realities in the wider Black Sea region. One important signal was the recent introduction in the U.S. Senate of the Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014. If passed, the bill proposes to treat Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova, along with Azerbaijan, as major non-NATO allies and pledges their closer interaction with the U.S. military. Though this status does not entail the same mutual defense and security guarantees afforded to NATO members, if passed the bill would affirm the strategic importance of the greater Black Sea region to the United States. Even though the United States is ill-prepared to defend Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova against Russia today, it is also important to counter any perception that the United States (and the West) have acquiesced to increased Russian dominance in the region.

Georgia’s Ukraine Policy: Implications for Party Politics

The issue of Ukraine has been an important factor in the internal politics of Georgia as well. After the Rose (2003) and Orange Revolutions (2004), the political elites of both states enjoyed strong political ties. Based on personal contacts (former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili went to university in Kyiv) and revolutionary solidarity, the government under Saakashvili had unprecedented access to Ukrainian politics. During his tenure, Saakashvili managed to establish strong cooperative relationships with a wide array of Ukrainian politicians, including Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko. Importantly, the links he established were institutionalized by interparty cooperation by affiliation with international platforms like the European People’s Party (EPP) and other European structures. Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) and Ukraine’s Rukh and Batkivshchyna parties garnered the support of like-minded European politicians. Saakashvili and the UNM even tried to influence the 2010 presidential election in Ukraine when they openly supported Tymoshenko over Viktor Yanukovych and sent election observers to Donetsk, Yanukovych’s political stronghold. Even today, the new authorities in Kyiv seem to be partial to Saakashvili. Some of his team members, including Kakha Bendukidze (former Minister of Economic Development), Giorgi Vashadze (former head of the Civil Registry Agency), and others currently work as advisors for different branches of the Ukrainian government.

The policy on Ukraine that the Georgian Dream (GD) government has pursued is a significant departure from the approach its predecessors adopted. Tbilisi has underlined its full support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and referred to Russia’s occupation of Crimea as a land grab. However, Tbilisi has abandoned its openly anti-Russian rhetoric and has not embraced the Georgian opposition’s request that the government “condemn Russia’s brazen military aggression.” Instead, the Georgian authorities issue carefully-worded statements that seek to avoid irritating Moscow. Unlike previous administrations, the GD government seems less keen to use emotional and critical language against Moscow preferring instead diplomatic idioms. Tbilisi is well aware that the geopolitical stand-off between Russia and the West over Ukraine leaves little space for any meaningful incentives for Georgian diplomacy.

The Ukraine crisis is seen as potentially significant for the Georgian economy. Although the figures are not huge, there are important economic links between Ukraine and Georgia. Ukraine was Georgia’s third largest trading partner in 2013 with $795.1 million in trade turnover,[2] and any kind of political crisis or unrest immediately influences business and economic relations between the two states. Because Georgia cannot rely on the politically-managed Russian market, the Ukrainian market is of significant importance as a regional alternative to Russia. It is still not clear how trade between Ukraine and Georgia is being affected due to the current crisis, though Georgian experts fear the impact is negative. One positive element for Georgia, however, are inflows of Ukrainian tourists who would otherwise have vacationed in Crimea.

Conclusion

Even though Georgia and Ukraine can celebrate their closer ties with the EU, it is clear that neither will persuade the EU or the United States to oppose Russia militarily. On the other hand, given the current circumstances, some experts see the possibility of accelerated NATO support for Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova. At the moment, however, this is unlikely. In the aftermath of the September NATO summit in Wales, it is clear that neither Ukraine nor Georgia are on a direct path to NATO membership. While Tbilisi’s Western trajectory so far remains unchallenged, concerns persist that Russia’s proxy war in Ukraine, if continued, could have long-term effects on security dynamics in the South Caucasus and its longstanding conflict zones, as well as on the political landscape in Georgia, where old and newly-emerging pro-Russian political forces still wait for their call. With tensions high after summer clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops over Nagorno-Karabakh, the situation concerning regional peace and security is all the more grim. Recent declarations from Georgia’s breakaway republic South Ossetia about holding a referendum on joining Russia has also aroused suspicions that Russia is preparing to annex this region. For now, however, it seems that Moscow does not wish to invite further international criticism over moves it might make on Georgia’s separatist regions. Still, Georgian officials cannot be complacent regarding Moscow’s designs toward South Ossetia. Georgia’s present flirting with the Kremlin does not alter the perpetual intentions of the Russian Federation: to keep Georgia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet states within its sphere of influence and to divert them from a European path. It is up to Western leaders to respond to this challenge and to responsibly address security concerns in the greater Black Sea region.

[PDF]


[1] Luis Navarro, “Public attitudes in Georgia: Results of a April 2014 survey carried out for NDI by CRRC-Georgia and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).” Available at: https://www.ndi.org/files/Georgia_April_2014_Survey_English.pdf

[2]http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=26885

 

Memo #:
349
Series:
2
PDF:
Pepm349_Kakachia_Sept2014.pdf
Related Topics
  • Georgia
  • Kakachia
  • Ukraine
Previous Article
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Approaches to State- and Nation-Building in Russia’s Ukraine Policy

  • September 15, 2014
  • Yulia Nikitina
View
Next Article
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

The Clampdown on Internet Activities in Russia and the Implications for Western Policy

  • September 15, 2014
  • Mark Kramer
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

How Foreign Funders Should Strengthen Their Support for Civil Society: A Case Study of USAID in Kazakhstan

  • Sebastien Peyrouse
  • October 3, 2023
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Explaining Ukraine’s Resilience to Russia’s Invasion: The Role of Local Governance and Decentralization Reform

  • Andrii Darkovich, Myroslava Savisko and Maryna Rabinovych
  • September 11, 2023
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

A Window of Opportunity by Default: Will Moldova Use It?

  • Ryhor Nizhnikau and Arkady Moshes
  • September 8, 2023
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Prigozhin’s Fate in Putin’s Russia: The Political Roles of Aircraft

  • Mark Kramer
  • September 7, 2023
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Foreign Fighters in Ukraine: Multiple Ideological Agendas, One Tactical Goal

  • Jean-François Ratelle, Mira Seales and Agnes Wenger
  • August 28, 2023
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Victory Despite the Cost: What Ukrainians Think about the War, Peace, and Russia

  • Yuriy Matsiyevsky
  • August 11, 2023
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

Why the West Should Localize Anti-Corruption Efforts in Ukraine

  • Olena Lennon
  • July 21, 2023
View
  • Policy Memos | Аналитика

One Step Ahead of the Dictator: OVD-Info and the Rebuilding of Russian Civil Society

  • Maria Chiara Franceschelli and Viacheslav Morozov
  • July 19, 2023

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.