Georgia and Ukraine have long been close. Witnessing revolutions that brought democratic pro-Western governments, both countries later witnessed a Russian military attack, in the Kremlin's attempt to pull both states back into Moscow's orbit.
It now looks like in Georgia, 16 years after a brief war that left 20% of the country occupied, Moscow had succeeded.
The ruling Georgian Dream party has been methodically imposing oppressive laws, mimicking those that were previously adopted by Moscow.
The adoption of controversial laws targeting civil society, independent media, and the LGBTQ+ community akin to Russian legislation rolled back years of westward progress and effectively halted EU accession for Tbilisi, once a poster child of liberal and democratic reforms in the region.
The pivot from the West toward Russia has sparked mass protests across this largely pro-Western and pro-Ukrainian country and caused a pushback from some key figures in the country's public and political life.
With the Georgian Dream party in power, relations between Kyiv and Tbilisi took a similar dive.
The Georgian government remained on the sidelines of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the ruling party using images of war as a scare tactic ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for late October.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, an independent figure, is a staunch advocate for Georgia's European and Euro-Atlantic strive and has sought to veto the controversial legislation without success.
Though initially endorsed by Georgian Dream during her victorious 2018 presidential run, Zourabichvili and the ruling party later found themselves in opposing political camps.
Now, according to her, the upcoming parliament election is a referendum on the country's future.
The Kyiv Independent met with President Zourabichvili at the Warsaw Security Forum on Oct. 1 to discuss Georgian-Ukrainian relations, Russian growing influence in Georgia, and the country's future now on the ballot.
The Kyiv Independent: Georgia's ruling party has recently passed foreign agents law and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that resembles similar legislation in Russia. Why did the Georgian Dream party push this legislation forward despite protests at home and opposition from Western partners?
President Salome Zourabichvili: That's something you have to ask them, not me. I've been opposing this law, as was the vast majority of the Georgian population: once last year on the streets and another time this year on the streets. I put my veto on this law.
It has now gone also to the Constitutional Court, (but) to no effect because the Constitutional Court is delaying its assessment of the constitutionality of this law.
But "why" is a question that has to be answered by those who made this decision. What we can say from the outside is that this looks very much like the modus operandi of the Russians when they were trying to coerce and restrain their civil society.
That's how they first started to try to take control of non-governmental organizations, to put pressure on them. And that's what's happening today.
It is even more of a concern in Georgia because it is happening on the eve of elections when these organizations have an important role to play in terms of monitoring the elections and being very much involved in this pre-electoral campaign.
The Kyiv Independent: A decade ago, Georgia was seen as the country most prepared for EU accession, both in terms of rule of law and legislation, from the Eastern trio (Georgia, Armenia, and Ukraine). Now, it is lagging behind, and the process is effectively frozen. How was this development possible?
President Salome Zourabichvili: This has come as a result of the positions taken by the authorities, which have really lagged behind in implementing the first 12 recommendations given by the European Union and then the nine recommendations.
Despite that, the candidate status granted to Georgia was received – and that's a very important sign – with enthusiasm from the whole population without any distinction between who the people were supporting or not supporting. So, it really reflects the sense of the population as a whole.
And after that started an intensification of anti-European rhetoric and anti-American rhetoric, and very aggressive accusations of our partners, Europeans, and Americans, of wanting to open a second front in Georgia.
"When one knows what the European Union is about, why it was created, and how difficult it is for European countries to think about war, even about supporting Ukraine, it's something you could laugh about if it was not so very concerning when you see that type of propaganda at work in a country like Georgia, propaganda that is completely in line with what the Russians are portraying on their side."
Salome Zourabichvili, President of Georgia during Warsaw Security Forum 2024, in Warsaw, Poland on Oct. 1, 2024. (Foto Olimpik/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The Kyiv Independent: Would you say that Moscow is now calling the shots in Tbilisi?
President Salome Zourabichvili: It's very difficult to say whether they're (Russia) calling the shots or whether the ruling party is trying to please the Russians out of its own initiative, but it doesn't really matter.
That's something that you cannot know from the outside. What is important is this parallelism, this similarity that says a lot about the direction in which the ruling party is going, and which I'm convinced will be overrun in the coming elections because that's not what the Georgian people, having two territories occupied, can want for its own future.
The Kyiv Independent: Do you think the upcoming parliamentary elections will decide Georgia's future?
President Salome Zourabichvili: Of course. First of all, it's going to be a quasi-referendum, because that's the way it's seen by the population, that we are choosing now whether we go back to our European past, or whether we accept and defer to the Russian indirect pressure. And that's the way the Georgian population is preparing for these elections.
That's the way in which the political forces are preparing themselves, and there is by now common ground and platform for the four pro-European opposition parties. And I think that we are going in good condition towards these elections.
The Kyiv Independent: What do you think about a statement by Mr. Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chairman of Georgian Dream, that Georgia carries the blame for the war of 2008 and that it should apologize?
President Salome Zourabichvili: It's not one declaration, it's a set of all the recent declarations and rhetoric that goes in one direction. It is (designed) to please Russia and to attack our friends and partners.
So that is the image in general that is very preoccupying in Georgia. And that is what the Georgian population sees, and doesn't understand, and I'm sure doesn't share.
The Kyiv Independent: There have been signs of deterioration of relations between Ukraine and Georgia, Georgian Dream has even used footage of war in its campaign ads. How would you describe the current state of relations between Ukraine and Georgia?
President Salome Zourabichvili: I would not describe that as relations between Ukraine and Georgia. I would describe that as relations between Ukraine and the ruling party of Georgia. That does not describe the state of mind of the Georgian population, which was upset in a very brutal way by this campaign launched by the ruling party, which put in contrast the war in Ukraine and the supposed peace in Georgia.
Nobody liked it, and they had to withdraw some of these videos. And I think that the state of relations between Georgia and Ukraine is better described and seen on the streets of Tbilisi, where you see Ukrainian flags almost everywhere, and the way in which Ukrainians are received by the Georgian population. So I'm quite optimistic about the future of our relations after.
Alisa Yurchenko
Introducing official
merch from the Kyiv Independent
