Will Russia do away with sanctions against Georgia?

Moscow seems satisfied with the reaction of official Tbilisi to a Georgian TV anchor’s on-air curse of Russian President Vladimir Putin

Will sanctions be cancelled? 

Russian officials have floated the possibility of resuming flights to Georgia, a source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. 

“If the situation in Georgia is normalized, and if the Russophobia will cease and if there will be guarantees for the safety of our citizens, we can talk about air traffic,” he said.

Direct flights between the two countries were discontinued on Moscow’s decision – the ban on flights entered into force on July 8.

The Russian parliament recently called for economic sanctions against Georgia, in particular a ban on the import of wine and mineral water, as well as remittances to Georgia, but President Putin spoke out against such measures.

A representative of the Russian government said that after Putin’s statement, the likelihood of imposing such sanctions is zero.

The Russian media has made various conjectures about what is happening in Russia’s policy towards Georgia.

There are two accounts of these developments: 

• Initially, no one in Russia was prepared for the events in Georgia, the impetus for which was the arrival of MP Gavrilov in Tbilisi. And when they spontaneously began, various political forces tried to use them. Proponents of a hard line suggested aggravating relations with Georgia in order to divert the attention of the Russian public from domestic problems. The result was a presidential decree abolishing flights. But then supporters of a more liberal political line convinced Putin to abandon this path.

• Aggravation of relations with Georgia is a carefully developed plan, the goal of which is the inclusion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia into Russia. This will make it possible to rewrite the Russian constitution and legally elect Putin as president for a fifth term in 2024.