I don’t know why, but many perceived Moscow’s decision to abolish its visa policy for Georgian citizens and lift the ban on direct flights as something sensational. It seems to me that, based on the degree of Russian-Georgian relations, this step is quite natural.
Millions of Russian tourists in Georgia, millions of bottles of Georgian wines on the shelves of Russian stores, endless traffic jams from trucks on Lars … The Georgian economy is clearly at its peak from interaction with Russia.
In politics the maximum convergence has also been achieved — no sanctions, no “second front”. Even in terms of the Russian opposition, they somehow found a common language.
In fact, the abolition of visas and the lifting of the ban on air travel is the icing on the cake of the conditional program “Interaction without diplomatic relations.” This program, which is in some way consonant with the EU plan for Abkhazia and formulated at the beginning of the 2000s by special representative Peter Semneby under the title “Interaction without recognition”, was not announced by anyone, is not spelled out in any document. But this “interaction without diplomatic relations” has been going continuously since at least February of last year, since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The same can’t be said about the European Union program for Abkhazia — in this case they talked a lot, but did nothing.
But the Russian-Georgian program, on the contrary, said nothing but did a lot.
In Abkhazia, of course, they are anxiously following the pace of interaction between Moscow and Tbilisi. For a very simple reason: it always ends up to the worse for Abkhazia. The Kremlin is no different for scrupulousness and attention to nuances. For example, they somehow forgot to invite the presidents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to the military parade on Red Square. Since 2008 they have practically not missed a single such event. We sat on the VIP stand next to the leaders of world powers. And when half the world turned away from Russia, and there was a deficit in friends, they suddenly forgot to call these two.
This is of course a trifle, but it gives food for thought.
In this context, it is important that the Abkhaz authorities do not remain outside observers of the process. So that they begin to more actively declare themselves as an independent player, and not obligingly shift the resolution of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict onto the shoulders of Moscow. Otherwise the result may be completely unacceptable to Abkhazia.
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