Krystian Kamiński on X.
Russia cut off Abkhazia backing in September. For the unrecognized Caucasian republic, this is of considerable importance, as Moscow's money covered a crucial part of its spending: salaries of any wellness workers, education and safety officials. The Russians besides announced the transition to marketplace prices in billing electricity supplies to the separatist republic. It would be a disaster for all its inhabitants.
In order to add seriousness to these decisions on the telegram channels, a scan of the alleged protocol from the gathering of the president of Abkhazia Aslan Bezhania and Deputy Head of Administration of Russian president Dmitri Kozak was disseminated. There is simply a Russian allegation in the protocol that Abkhazia "does not fulfil its obligations" towards Russia. The question is the common implementation of judicial sentences, the transmission by Abkhazia of information about the local opposition and the housing bill, namely the issue of allowing foreigners, in practice specifically the Russians, to get premises in Abkhazia.
The second has been the subject of a dispute in years. Abkhazia lies in a strip between the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus mountains, having a warm, humid subtropical climate, milder and nicer than most of the region. In the times of the russian Union it was an attractive tourist destination. A delightful bite for Russian investors, so the separatist authorities, although in Moscow's position of protectorate, defended themselves against repealing the ban on the sale of property to foreigners, which would endanger to practically buy out a tiny and mediocre republic. This issue has already caused respective times in the past of Abkhazia street protests of its inhabitants, the last time in 2022 erstwhile Bzanija wanted to hand over an area of over 100 hectares to the Russians in Picunda.
However, this time the stakes of the game are most likely much higher than the Russians' right to get property in Abkhazia. This is suggested by a recent, unexpected message by Bidzina Ivanishwili, the founder of the governing organization of Georgia – “Georgian Dream” and the de facto first individual in the country. Ivanishvili declared that it would be appropriate for the Georgian authorities to express an apology to the Ossetians – residents of the second separatist republic in the internationally recognized territory of Georgia – South Ossetia. A leading Georgian politician condemned the decision of erstwhile Georgian president Micheil Saakashvili on an armed attack against separatists in August 2008. There was a reaction from Russia, which came with armed assistance from the separatists, as a consequence entering five-day clashes with Georgian armed forces, entering areas controlled by Tbilisi, making material damage, for example in the port of Poti. Ivanishvili called the Osethians "brothers and sisters". He besides expressed the belief that the conflict would "be concluded with historical common forgiveness and sincere reconciliation." As the main culprit, enemy and Georgians, and Osethians of Ivanishvili pointed to the organization founded by Saakashvili, to this day constituting the core of the opposition to the regulation of "Georgian Dream".
In the legal and global sense, South Ossetia was a part of Georgia, in a political sense, which, in Poland, since the first day, had built this conflict with just as one-sided propaganda that is now building the war in Ukraine, the Georgian attack on South Ossetia was a mistake, a poker game by Saakashvili, who thought that by attacking at the time of the start of the Beijing Olympics, he would be able to rapidly establish the facts accomplished. It ended with a military defeat, the failure of an additional territory – Kodorsky Gorge, designation by Russia of the statehood of both South Ossetia. as well as Abkhazia and the organization binding of separatist republics by subsequent agreements. It can be said that Saakashvili's bravado has closed the question of 2 lost territories for Georgia. The words of Ivanishvili, which may be shocking for parts of the Georgians, reopen it in fresh geopolitical realities.
GREEN DREAM GAMBIT
Russia cut off Abkhazia backing in September. For the unrecognized Caucasian republic, this is of considerable importance, as Moscow's money covered a crucial part of its spending: salaries of part of health, education and service officers... pic.twitter.com/70SRdWQqLy
Perhaps Ivanishvili is receiving signals behind the curtain. possibly it reads what we all see, that is, an open mention between Moscow and Abkhazia. However, it is besides a broader context. It seems that the camp that governs Georgia felt that it needed any form of normalization and stabilisation of relations with Moscow, due to the fact that it is inactive and will be stronger in the Caucasus than the West in the foreseeable future, and the second in the planet is weakening, and surely weaken its ability to influence the situation in the Caucasus. In this sense Georgia strengthens precisely the other vector of abroad policy than turning towards Western Armenia. Ivanishvili, in this speech, made it clear to his fellow countrymen: "12 years ago, erstwhile I spoke before you, I stressed that European integration was our strategical choice, but we cannot choose our neighbours and therefore, in parallel with European integration, we must take a principled but correct position towards Russia."
The signal of Georgia's distance from the West was the adoption in May by its parliament of the "Law on the transparency of abroad influence" against the protests of the European Union, the suspension of accession procedures for Tbilisi and US individual sanctions. I wrote more about it in May. However, it is at this point that the Parliament of Georgia has taken another step decisively against the ideological foundations of the Western bloc policy.
On September 17, the Parliament of Georgia adopted at 3rd reading a package of draft laws called “On household values and the protection of minors”. It includes: the introduction of a ban on the adoption and legal care of children by homosexuals; a ban on the organisation of events aimed at promoting same-sex marriages or sex change; a ban on the promotion of " same-sex relationships" and incest in literature, films, performances or drawings. The content presently presented to the public is to be withdrawn. It was besides established on 17 May as a fresh state vacation – the “Front of the Family”. On that day in the West, “The Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia” is promoted. Even at the parliamentary stage, the package sparked European Union protests. Brussels diplomacy recognised on 4 September that the provisions undermine the fundamental rights of Georgia's population and pose a threat to stigmatisation and discrimination of part of the population. Further cooling of the relation between Tbilisi and Brussels and the leading Western states is expected.
It is inactive worth returning to the leak of the alleged protocol from the talks of the president of Abkhazia in the Administration of the president of Russia. His interlocutor was Dmitri Kozak. It has already been burdened by the Kremlin with the task of resolving conflicts between the russian states and separatist organisms operating on their territory. In 2003, he gave a name to the alleged ‘Kozak Memorandum’ which assumed the return of Transnistrian under the effective sovereignty of Moldova, but on a federalisation basis, with the right of veto of Republican Transnistrian structures against global agreements concluded by the Chisinaus. The president of Moldova rejected the initiative – and at the time was the pro-Russian communist Vladimir Voronin. In 2014, Kozak dealt with Russia's annexed Crimea. In 2020, he was appointed as the 3rd Deputy Head of the Administration of the president of Russia, in which he assumed work for overseeing the affairs of Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic. In this function he replaced the erstwhile powerful "grey eminence" of Kremlin, present completely marginalized Władysław Surkov. In this position Kozak was not successful erstwhile alternatively of a political solution The Kremlin had to appeal to war. Now he's being dumped on the Caucasian episode.
I wrote about Saakashvili's 2008 rowing poker game. Now it's time for Ivanishvili's gambit. Georgia's first policy unless it estimates that restoring Georgia's sovereignty over the rebellious regions since the early 1990s is worth concessions, political compromises. His declarations not only indicate his willingness to compromise with Russia, but possibly besides his willingness to talk with the Abkhazians and the Ossetians and their concessions. possibly Ivanishvili believes that restoring the state's formal territorial integrity and control of borders, even with the sharing of power, is more hard but besides more permanent than the future change of 1 or another political strategy within a state or 1 or another abroad policy in dynamic global relations. No substance what he thinks and believes, the Bidzin Ivanishvili will number on what they believe and what Georgians believe. Parliamentary elections in the Caucasian state on 26 October. "Georgian Dream" has a chance to win.
