Date: 2023-04-27
Adam Holloway: While Russia's war in Ukraine has rightly been the object of our attention for the last year and a half, Ukraine is not the only country in the region that is vulnerable to Russian aggression. The current governing party in Georgia, the Georgian Dream party, is a pro-Putin, pro-Russian group whose leadership risks Georgia becoming a Russian puppet in this critical area for global security. The Georgian Dream party has, from its beginning, been an organisation sympathetic to and increasingly controlled by Russian authorities, all while claiming to be western and democratic. Its founder, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the former Prime Minister of Georgia, is an oligarch who reportedly made his money from Russian dealings. It is alleged that he has used his immense wealth to buy votes and place his loyalists throughout the Georgian Government. Though he currently holds no elected office, he exerts great control over Georgia's institutions. The rampant corruption in Georgia's political system has begun to be brought into the light. Just recently, the United States placed personal sanctions on four judges appointed by the current Government. Meanwhile, Mr Ivanishvili's one-time rival, Mikheil Saakashvili, is currently dying in hospital after being tried in absentia and jailed on what his supporters say are fabricated charges. He reports from his hospital bed that he has been regularly tortured throughout his imprisonment, and independent doctors have confirmed that traces of heavy metal poisoning have been found in his blood. When Mr Saakashvili was President of Georgia in 2008, Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia, and Russian troops occupied large parts of the country. At the time, Mr Saakashvili warned that this was the first step in Putin's quest to rebuild Russia's sphere of influence and, ultimately, empire in eastern Europe and the Caucasus. He also warned that after Georgia, Putin would turn his eye towards Crimea. Those were then viewed by the international community as rather fringe opinions, but it is now apparent that he was absolutely right. The 2008 invasion led to continued anti-Russian sentiment in Georgia, with many looking toward European integration and NATO membership. Under the Georgian Dream party, the country has changed direction. European and NATO integration remain popular objectives among the Georgian people, with opinion polls showing nearly universal support. Those objectives are also written into Georgia's constitution, but the Georgian Dream Government, though purporting to be pro-European and western-friendly, intentionally sabotage the fulfilment of EU entry criteria. The party has also sabotaged support for the Ukrainian war effort, while Georgian citizens have signed up in huge numbers to fight against the Russian invasion. Even as most European countries imposed sanctions on Russia in the wake of the Ukrainian invasion, the Georgian Government saw a business opportunity and expanded trade with Russia. In the first quarter of this year, Russian imports to Georgia increased by 79% compared with 2022. Georgia has in particular provided a market for Russian energy exports, which the west has avoided--as  all our constituents know, that has come at great personal cost. That increase in trade threatens to undermine the sanctions that we have imposed, and will only draw Tbilisi into closer ties with Moscow. Most recently, in March of this year, Georgian Dream announced plans for a new foreign agent Act that would label society groups critical of the Government as "foreign agents", risking censorship of anti-Government opinion.