EERIK-NIILES KROSS ⟩ Putin's victory in Georgia would be a major loss for NATO

Demonstration in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. December 15, 2024. Photo: GIORGI ARJEVANIDZE

• The Georgian government has praised Moscow and condemned Europe.
• Russia is losing all its influence in both the Middle East and the South Caucasus.
• The victory of Georgia's pro-Russian government could now save Putin's regime. And vice versa.

The largest mass protest in the country's history has been going on for 18 days in Georgia, not only in the capital, but also in smaller cities. Thugs and masked police officers in the pay of the ruling party are beating protesters, and over 500 people have been arrested, Estonian MP Eerik-Niiles Kross (Reform Party) writes.

President Salome Zourabichvili has assumed the role of leader of the people. Only representatives of the ruling party have entered the parliament, which convened on the basis of the October 26 electoral fraud. Four opposition blocs did not accept mandates, and as a result, the Georgian parliament has less than 2/3 of the 150 deputies. According to the constitution, two-thirds is necessary for the parliament to gain full powers.

The government has announced that it is freezing EU accession negotiations, which is also the main reason for the unrest, along with election fraud. The US, UK and Baltic states have imposed sanctions on leading politicians of the ruling party and on Bidzina Ivanishvili, the pro-Russian oligarch who de facto controls the country.

Starting yesterday [Sunday], Georgia has two presidents. The legitimate Salome Zourabichvili, elected by the people, and the football player Mikheil Kavelashvili, appointed by a parliament formed through fraudulent elections. The government has announced that it will remove Zourabichvili’s immunity. It is planned to declare a state of emergency and impose a curfew.

The Georgian government has praised Moscow and condemned Europe. There are Russian specialists operating in Georgia and Georgian-speaking men are being sought in Russia to send them to Georgia to help, likely not to provide humanitarian aid.

The pretense that Georgian Dream put on until the October elections, which is that in general there is still a desire to join Europe and NATO (only on Georgian terms and while maintaining relations with Russia), has been replaced by an undisguised pro-Russian sentiment. It has been claimed that the Russians have threatened Tbilisi that if the government does not suppress the people's aspirations for Europe, the Russians will come and do it themselves. In the grand scheme of things, it makes little difference whether the Russians' policies are being implemented by the Russians themselves or by their henchmen.

However, the bigger picture is something that even we tend to lose sight of amid the chaos unleashed across the world.

Georgia is crucial namely when it comes to this picture. Russia, which under Putin's leadership has been trying to establish itself strongly in the south of the Caucasus since 2008, is about to suffer a major strategic loss in the south. A loss primarily to Turkey, but also to the West (especially if the post-Biden West can pull itself together).

The cooperation between Russia, Iran, the Assad regime and Hezbollah against the rebels in the Syrian civil war has been very important for the Russians in strengthening alliances and projecting power.

In 2008, the Russians halted Georgia and Ukraine's NATO aspirations with the war in Georgia and occupied Abkhazia and South Ossetia with impunity. In 2012, Bidzina Ivanishvili came to power in Georgia with money earned in Russia. Since 2016, the Russians have established themselves in Syria, where the Tartus naval base and Latakia air base give them control or at least a significant shoulder of power in the eastern Mediterranean, threatening Turkey in particular. The Russians have tried to gain control of the Black Sea from every corner. This is one of the secondary goals of the war in Ukraine. There have been attempts to destabilize and take over Moldova, and now Romania as well. The cooperation between Russia, Iran, the Assad regime and Hezbollah against the rebels in the Syrian civil war has been very important for the Russians in strengthening alliances and projecting power.

A month ago, it seemed that while the Russians had lost their strategic dominance in the Baltic Sea, they were steadily strengthening it in the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. The Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7 were, if not instigated by the Russians, then at least in their direct interests. A crisis in the Middle East that would keep Israel and its Western allies busy for a long time, strengthen Iran, and divide Israel and strain relations in the Arab world seemed like a good idea.

As usual, Putin read Biden right and Netanyahu wrong. Washington tried almost from the start to defuse the situation in the Middle East by holding Israel back and imposing various restrictions on attacks. The same strategic blindness that we have seen for three years in the US’ policy on Ukraine, which has left Ukrainian hospitals and power plants unprotected from Russian missile attacks, while Russian air bases and armories are protected.

The Russians have already gone all out in Ukraine and have failed to fill the hole created in Syria.

By now, however, the Russians have suffered several serious losses in a row, Israel has ignored the UN and Washington's cries and knocked out Hezbollah's leadership and a large part of the leadership of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The domino effect that started from this has brought us to the present day. Hezbollah fighters withdrew from Syria to fall against Israel at home, Iran lost a large part of its air defenses to Israeli air strikes both in Syria and at home, and its willingness and ability to assist Assad has been significantly reduced. The Russians have already gone all out in Ukraine and have failed to fill the hole created in Syria.

At the same time, Turkey, which has long been establishing itself against Russia in both the Caucasus and Syria, became active. Let us recall that a couple of years ago already, with the help of Turkey, the Azerbaijanis expelled the Russian-backed Armenian forces from Karabakh and the territories occupied by Armenia. A relatively pro-Western government took power in Armenia, which is persistently demonstrating its desire to emerge from the Russian shadow. The Russians have lost de facto control over Abkhazia, the parliament of which replaced the prime minister put in charge by the Russians and rejected laws that would have favored Russian investments in Abkhazia.

Putin's biggest loss, of course, was in Syria, where a decade-long effort to establish himself militarily has now almost certainly failed. Russian ships have left Tartus and Russian bases are emptying. While Moscow is talking about negotiations with HTS [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham] and Turkey and the bases remaining, which may be true to some extent, Russia's major military influence in Syria and, by extension, the Middle East is over.

Turkey has defeated the Russians in Karabakh and now in Syria. Israel is very much strengthening itself in the Middle East and Trump’s coming is only encouraging them. Israel has also proven that anti-Bidenesque escalation, not constant retreat and appeasement, brings success.

In short, the Russians have lost all their positions south of the Caucasus, except for South Ossetia, which is of course comical, and Georgia is hanging by a thread. But that is precisely why Moscow is now putting absolutely everything on the line to ensure that its pawns win in Georgia, because when the European Union flag is raised next to the Georgian flag in Tbilisi, the balance of power in the South Caucasus and the Middle East has changed for good.

Major international defeats usually bring political upheavals in Russia. Hopefully, Europe, which is usually slow to wake up, will understand the significance of the moment. The victory of Georgia's pro-Russian government could now save Putin's regime. And vice versa.