How Russia Could Exploit Georgia’s Political Turmoil

As dusk fell on the hills around the Georgian village of Odzisi, activist David Katsarava looked out over the valley and the glimmering lights on a mountainside beyond. The lights belonged to a military base, operated not by Georgian forces but by Russia’s Federal Security Service and border guard. The river that meandered through the valley marked the start of the occupied region of South Ossetia, which Russia captured during its invasion of Georgia in 2008.

“Even to go close to the river is rather dangerous, because they can cross the river, ambush you, kidnap you, and bring you to the occupied territory,” Katsarava said.

Katsarava leads an anti-occupation movement that monitors Russian military activity and kidnappings of Georgian citizens along the occupation line. According to figures that Katsarava has gathered from government reports in the last 16 years, Russian forces have built at least 30 bases on occupied territory since 2008 and kidnapped around 3,600 Georgians, killing seven after extensive torture.

“The government does not have any political will to defend our citizens,” he said. It “doesn’t have any vision of how to stop this creeping occupation of the country.”

That reality is unlikely to change anytime soon. On Oct. 26, Georgia’s increasingly pro-Russian ruling party, Georgian Dream, declared victory in parliamentary elections after observers noted widespread fraud, interference, and violence at the polls. Georgia’s pro-Western opposition has deemed the vote illegitimate, and the opposition-aligned ceremonial president, Salome Zourabichvili, alleged that Georgian Dream had “stolen” the election with Russia’s help. One of the firms that conducted exit polls during the vote called the result “statistically impossible.”

After a timid start, anti-government protests in the capital of Tbilisi still draw tens of thousands of Georgians more than two weeks since the election. The fight has also moved to the courts, where a judge nullified election results in 30 precincts due to violations of voter secrecy. With the opposition calling for unrelenting demonstrations until a new vote is held, Georgia appears set to enter a period of unprecedented political turmoil—which Moscow is poised to exploit.

Georgia’s drift toward Russia is nothing new. Even though the country’s development has long relied on Western support and Georgians are overwhelmingly in favor of European Union membership, Georgian Dream has positioned itself closer to Russia while nominally claiming to support integration with the West. Since the party came to power in 2012, it has sacrificed democratic freedoms that Georgians fought for years to secure in service of a nonconfrontational agenda toward Moscow that has morphed into subservience.

Georgian Dream has passed laws limiting LGBTQ rights, targeted independent researchers, and employed brute force against political opponents. One of the most dramatic steps in this direction was the passage of the Russian-inspired foreign agent law in May, which forced NGOs and media organizations receiving at least 20 percent of their funding from overseas to register as agents of foreign governments.

Russia had considerable levers of influence in Georgia before the elections. In addition to developing significant economic and energy ties to Moscow, Tbilisi has refused to put in place visa requirements for Russian nationals after the invasion of Ukraine, and according to local media, it has helped the Kremlin evade Western sanctions. Former security officials note that Russian intelligence agencies have been active in Georgia for years.

Georgia’s immediate future remains hazy. With few incentives for Georgian Dream to back down, the opposition has vowed to boycott Parliament, raising the prospect of one-party legislative rule, an intractable constitutional crisis, and indefinite anti-government protests. But what is clear is that with Georgian Dream’s proclaimed victory after a deeply compromised vote, Georgia’s relationship with Russia is set to undergo a fundamental shift.

As Russian officials signaled prior to the vote, Moscow is prepared to help Georgian Dream retain its position in the face of challenges to its rule from Zourabichvili, the Georgian opposition, and their Western allies. Moscow since denied accusations of interfering in the election while accusing the West of meddling and “neocolonialism.” On Oct. 30, the Georgian Prosecutor General’s Office summoned Zourabichvili for an investigation into her claims about election fraud, two days after Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, called for her arrest.

Georgians and political analysts alike have drawn parallels between Georgia’s predicament and the anti-government uprisings in Ukraine in 2014 and Belarus in 2020, with anxieties mounting that unrest in Tbilisi could lead to Russian special forces intervening to preserve Georgian Dream’s rule.

Should the ruling party continue to deploy repressive tactics to thwart protesters, including arbitrary arrests, intimidation, and torture, this scenario may not even require Russian troops. The party has reportedly already begun fortifying special police units to counter demonstrations. And if Georgian Dream does emerge victorious after the dust settles—which many Georgians fear is likely—those in the opposition are convinced that it will be the start of a new reality.

“If Russia consolidates its position and succeeds in pushing Western interests and influence out of Georgia, it will be one of the most consequential strategic victories of the Putin regime since its inception,” said Nino Evgenidze, the director of the Economic Policy Research Center and the Fukuyama Democracy Frontline Centre in Tbilisi.

Some Georgian national security veterans have gone even further. “We will completely switch to the type of relationship as [exists] between Belarus and Russia,” said Givi Targamadze, a politician affiliated with the opposition United National Movement and a key figure in Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution, which led to the establishment of the contemporary Georgian state.

Targamadze, the former chair of the Georgian Parliament’s Defense and Security Committee, recounted that in his time in government, as Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko moved closer to Russia, many Belarusian civil society organizations that he interacted with were gutted and replaced with bodies stacked with Russian loyalists—something he thinks will happen increasingly in Georgia’s near future, especially since Russian services and loyalists have already infiltrated Georgia’s national security institutions.

Nevertheless, Georgian Dream officially maintains a policy of political disengagement from Russia, relying on what the party calls “strategic patience” with its neighbor—a position that it says will preserve peace within Georgia, providing time for the country to work steadily toward reclaiming its lost territories.

“It took Germany 50 years to unify,” Nikoloz Samkharadze, a Georgian Dream parliamentarian and the chairman of the Georgian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told Foreign Policy. “Maybe Russia is not ready for the occupation [to end] today, but they might take this step tomorrow.” “We do not have guarantees from [any] security alliance,” he added. “We need to wait for the right moment. We need to be very pragmatic.”

During the campaign, Georgian Dream warned that an electoral loss would provoke a Russian invasion, as in 2008—but in the eyes of some Georgians, the risk of conflict remains under a Georgian Dream government.

Although most observers say another Russo-Georgian war remains unlikely in the near term, Katsarava and his NGO have documented signs that Russia is prepared to assert itself in Georgia. Katsarava said recent drone and surveillance footage he gathered shows that Russia’s largest base in South Ossetia has grown, with an influx of armored vehicles and at least 810 troops, up from 150 four months ago. On Oct. 30, Katsarava’s team observed artillery trainings at the base near Odzisi. “We see that Russia is again flexing its muscles,” he said.

Yet under Georgian Dream leadership, Tbilisi seems to have disinvested in many of its practical military capabilities. Defense funding in Georgia has dropped considerably since 2008. According to an active lieutenant colonel in the Georgian armed forces with nearly two decades of military experience, salaries, barracks, and other cosmetic elements have improved, but overall readiness is diminished.

“In 2008, the situation and preparation and readiness was higher than now,” said the officer, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of professional repercussions. “It’s kind of ridiculous.”

Zourabichvili has raised similar concerns in the past, and Georgian military experts have warned that the termination of defense cooperation programs between Georgia and Western partners this year has the potential to create serious security gaps.

According to the officer, Georgian Dream’s approach to defense has largely demoralized the military rank and file. “Approximately 85 percent of the Georgian armed forces stand in opposition to this government,” he said. “If Georgia moves further down the path toward becoming another Belarus, we risk seeing a significant number of our officers lose hope and leave the service.”

It has long been a central facet of Russia’s grand strategy to reconstitute its sphere of influence in its near-abroad. With the West now in retreat in Georgia, Tbilisi’s likely new role as a Russian satellite would help cement the Kremlin’s hegemony over the Caucasus.

This new relationship would give Russia expanded control over military matters in the Black Sea, energy routes that pass through Georgia and Azerbaijan, and a newly stable land corridor it could use to both rein in independence-minded Armenia and reach Iran. It would also prevent competitors such as Turkey from expanding their footprint in the volatile region. Perhaps most importantly, it would ward off NATO and EU expansion along Russia’s southern border.

Even a prolonged state of limbo would work in Russia’s favor. As Georgian Dream grows more isolated internationally, it may have little choice but to become more reliant on Moscow’s support.

But for Georgians distraught over their looming subordination to Russia, the immediate and local impact of Georgian Dream’s alleged electoral coup is front of mind. “We are under a big risk to be conquered by Russia without an invasion by soldiers,” Katsarava said. “This is much more dangerous than a war.”