ANALYSIS | Nationwide protests in Georgia are a battle for the direction of the country — towards Europe or Russia | CBC News

As the riot police form a line, shields raised, protesters across the street shout curses and chants at them before deploying fireworks.

As the pyrotechnics rain down, some of the police charge forward, dragging protesters away for arrest, beating them all the while. A crowd dispersal vehicle with water cannons douses the still-defiant group as the police line advances. When that fails, the tear gas comes next, wreathing Rustaveli Avenue in acrid smoke.

Eventually, the protesters are slowly cleared.

This is the scene that has played out nightly for nearly two weeks in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital.

Protests have rocked the South Caucasus republic since Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced on Nov. 28 that the government was suspending talks on joining the European Union, long an official and popular goal in Georgia. 

A month earlier, Kobakhidze’s Georgian Dream party won a disputed national election, the results of which the European Parliament refused to recognize, citing “significant irregularities.”

The foreign policy reversal is part of a shocking change for Georgia over the past several years. Once seen as a pro-Western bastion in the region, the Georgian Dream administration has instead been charting a course increasingly aligned with Moscow since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 

That has intensified in recent months, with the European Union announcing in July that it was freezing Georgia’s recently opened EU accession process, while the United States suspended Washington’s “strategic partnership” program with Tbilisi on Nov. 30.

The shift away from Georgia’s longtime Western orientation in favour of Russia — which invaded Georgia in 2008 — is partially inspired by genuine security concerns, experts say.

Kornely Kakachia, a professor of political science at Tbilisi State University, says that while Georgia was seen as the darling of the West in the South Caucasus, geopolitical realities contributed to limiting those ties.

“Even though Georgia had closer contacts with the EU and U.S., they didn’t solve the country’s main problem, which was security — the permanent threat of Russia,” Kakachia said. 

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine drastically changed the calculus, too, because everyone knows that if Russia invades Georgia next, we will be on our own,” he said, adding that this messaging resonates among Georgians.

Consolidation of power

The primary motivation for the shift, however, was domestic, Kakachia said: a simple desire to consolidate power by elite members of the Georgian Dream. Chief among these is Bidzina Ivanishvili, the party’s billionaire founder who de facto runs the country from the shadows.

In this context, the EU’s demand for “deoligarchization” — differentiating between the interests of Georgia’s public and its wealthiest members — was understood by Ivanishvili to refer to him personally, Kakachia said. 

“He doesn’t want to lose power, and so he wanted to make sure nobody challenged him,” he said, adding that Ivanishvili “has now basically captured all state institutions — he can dismiss the prime minister tomorrow, announce any policy, without any checks.”

While Georgia’s opposition and protesters are keen to label every action of the government as either inspired or commanded by Russia, Kakachia says the current government was fully capable of assuming its present course with minimal input from Moscow.

“Ivanishvili thinks that the West is weak and that Russia is winning its war in Ukraine,” he explained. “And since there is this pressure to maintain democracy from the West, it’s much easier to align with Russia and other illiberal powers like China, Turkey, Azerbaijan and others. As Georgia becomes more isolated internationally, Russia’s influence will increase.”

Russia unlikely to openly intervene  

Other observers agree that while Moscow is surely pleased with Georgia’s present course, the country ranks much lower on the Kremlin’s list of priorities than many in Georgia assume.

“I’d be very hesitant about regarding Russia as the key driver of events in Ukraine,” said Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert and senior associate fellow at London’s Royal United Institute of Services (RUSI). 

He says that unlike Ukraine and Belarus, Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t see Georgia as part of Russia’s historical core, and there’s nothing specific — like territory, basing rights or mineral concessions — that he wants from the country. 

“Above all, the Kremlin just wants a neighbour that isn’t openly defying it,” Galeotti said, adding that’s a condition Georgian Dream is fulfilling.

There are few indications that Russia would consider intervening openly in Georgia — and fewer effective tools for it to do so, he says.

“Given the war in Ukraine and, indeed, the sudden reversals in Syria, it would be hard [for Moscow] to find regular military forces for an intervention.”

Parallels to Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution

In the absence of any significant foreign intervention — whether against the Georgian government by the West, or in support of it by Russia — Georgia’s protesters are largely left to bring down the increasingly repressive authorities on their own.

Many have already drawn parallels between Georgia’s current demonstrations and the 2013-14 Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine, where pro-European protesters managed to topple Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who sparked outrage by rejecting closer EU relations in favour of joining the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union.

And while the comparison isn’t exact, that successful civic uprising offers useful lessons for the present movement in Georgia.

“A lot of countries with authoritarian regimes have discontent, corruption, even [armed] insurgencies,” said Alexander Clarkson, a lecturer in German and European Studies at King’s College London. “But this kind of Maidan-level success in toppling a government needs a convergence of multiple factors that is rare.”

The three key factors, according to Clarkson, are a powerful and regionally diverse protest movement, a substantial opposition presence within state institutions, and enough government figures willing to defect. 

The first is certainly present in Georgia. More than 30 cities and towns across the country have seen protests, including both major cities such as Batumi and Kutaisi as well as smaller provincial towns.

The Georgian opposition’s influence over state institutions, however, is marginal. While Georgia is not nearly as authoritarian as Russia or Belarus, it’s far less factionalized than 2013 Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a steady drip of government defections have continued. Figures such as mid-level interior security chiefs and political appointees continue to leave their posts on a daily basis, while at least five Georgian ambassadors have also resigned.

There are also rumours of discontent within the rank and file of Georgia’s police force, perhaps explaining Georgian Dream’s increasing reliance on informal enforcers, known as titushki, to violently suppress protests.

Protesters adapting

And protesters are adapting, too. Recent days have seen a growth in “anti-titushki squads” at demonstrations. Their aim is to beat back riot police as they attempt to seize and detain participants. 

A cheer went up through the crowd on Rustaveli Avenue around midnight on Saturday as a group of 50 such young men — all rugby players, as one Georgian journalist told CBC News — strode proudly onto the street, heading to the scene of a recent scuffle with police.

Both the ongoing Georgian protests and the government’s violent response are unprecedented in the country’s 33 years of independence. 

As tens of thousands of Georgians continue to take to the streets nightly, it’s still unclear if they will succeed, but the stakes could not be higher. 

With Georgian authorities set to ban all major opposition parties in the near future, it might be the last chance for the protesters to stop their country’s authoritarian — and Russia-friendly — slide.