Georgian-Russian relations are currently going through what may be their most difficult period in years precisely because, on the surface, almost nothing is happening between the two countries. Moscow and Tbilisi still have no diplomatic relations; Russia continues to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and maintains a military presence there, while Georgia considers these territories occupied. At the same time, however, the acute confrontation that defined the very nature of bilateral relations only a few years ago is also absent. Trade, tourism, air links and extensive people-to-people contacts between the two countries continue, while official rhetoric remains largely detached from economic reality. At first glance, this could be described as pragmatic normalization. Yet such an explanation is too superficial. In reality, Russia and Georgia are not so much normalizing their relations as gradually adapting to a new regional reality in which the previous model of open confrontation has become disadvantageous to both sides, while the fundamental causes of the conflict have not disappeared.

The main change is that Moscow may no longer necessarily need a politically loyal Georgia. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s strategy in the South Caucasus was largely based on an effort to maintain political dominance over the region. Today, however, such an objective is becoming considerably less realistic and, at the same time, less necessary. Azerbaijan has emerged as an independent regional actor; relations between Baku and Yerevan are undergoing profound transformation; Türkiye has significantly strengthened its influence; and new transport routes and competition over the South Caucasus have made the region far more multipolar. Under these circumstances, an attempt to bring Georgia back into Russia’s direct sphere of influence could prove too costly for Moscow and produce the opposite result — the final geopolitical consolidation of Tbilisi against Russia. A more rational strategy, therefore, is not to control Georgian politics, but to prevent a scenario in which Georgia becomes a fully hostile platform toward Russia.

This is precisely where the seemingly contradictory nature of Moscow’s current policy emerges. On the one hand, Russia is interested in maintaining stable economic ties with Georgia and avoiding a new military conflict. On the other hand, Russia is simultaneously strengthening its de facto presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, gradually reducing the possibility of revising the existing status quo.

In the coming years, infrastructure rather than direct political integration may become increasingly important. Railways, aviation, energy, ports and other transport projects could enable Russia to integrate Abkhazia much more deeply into its economic and strategic space without repeatedly raising the issue of its formal status. This already has implications far beyond the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. Abkhazia is gradually transforming from a territory that Russia simply maintains as a geopolitical buffer into a potentially important element of Russia’s infrastructure in the Black Sea.

This is where Georgian-Russian relations become directly connected to the broader transformation of the region as a whole. The South Caucasus can no longer be viewed solely as a space of confrontation between Russia and the West. It is now simultaneously an arena of competition over transport routes, energy links, access to the Black Sea, and new connections between Europe and Asia. Following the changes in Azerbaijani-Armenian relations, the issue of regional connectivity has acquired an entirely different significance. Whereas Moscow previously exercised considerable influence over regional security through existing conflicts, new routes are now capable of changing the very geography of influence.

In this new reality, Georgia is becoming important to Russia in ways that extend far beyond the old territorial conflict. Georgia is crossed by critical routes connecting Azerbaijan and Türkiye with the Black Sea and Europe. At the same time, Moscow understands that new regional connectivity may gradually develop without its participation. This creates a fundamental problem for Russia: following the weakening of its position in Armenia and the emergence of new configurations around the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement, Moscow risks facing a South Caucasus in which it is no longer the central mediator and guarantor of security.

In this sense, the future of Georgian-Russian relations will directly affect the entire South Caucasus. If relations between Moscow and Tbilisi deteriorate sharply, transport and energy links on which not only Georgia but also Azerbaijan and Türkiye depend could come under threat. At the same time, excessively deep institutional rapprochement between Russia and Georgia could also alter the regional balance, as Moscow would gain additional opportunities to influence the infrastructure space connecting the Caspian Sea with the Black Sea.

The most important question for Georgia today is not whether it will ever be able to restore its former status over Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The question is different: will it manage to develop a new regional role in which its geography becomes a source of political strength rather than vulnerability? If Georgia can turn its position between the Black Sea, Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Armenia and Russia into an independent strategic asset, it will be able to reduce its dependence on external centers of power. If, however, its caution turns into simply waiting while other actors shape the regional architecture, the country risks gradually losing room for independent choice.

Salome Samadashvili, Political Secretary of the Lelo – For Georgia party, Senior Research Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI), and member of the Academic Council of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, views the changes taking place in the South Caucasus as part of a broader geopolitical transformation in which Georgia’s future, regional connectivity, and competition between Russia, the West and China are closely interconnected.

According to Samadashvili, Azerbaijan has been a strategic partner for Georgia for several decades, both formally and in practice. She links the durability of this partnership primarily to its practical importance for Georgia: cooperation with Azerbaijan, she says, has been vital to ensuring the country’s energy security and realizing its transit potential. Samadashvili also regards the support Azerbaijan provided to Georgia in maintaining the stability of its financial system during the 2008 Russo-Georgian war as an important indicator of the strategic nature of the relationship.

Today, Samadashvili notes, the importance of the Azerbaijani-Georgian partnership is acquiring an additional dimension due to the growing importance of Central Asia for Europe. In her assessment, Azerbaijan’s role as a Caspian country of the South Caucasus is becoming even more important for expanding Georgia’s cooperation with Central Asian states. In the broader context, Samadashvili sees the Caucasus as a space capable of playing a key role in ensuring connectivity between Central Asia and Western countries. However, in her view, the further development of this role will depend to a large extent on how strategic competition between China, Russia and the West develops in Central Asia.

Against this backdrop, Samadashvili believes that the importance of the Middle Corridor will continue to grow. In the current geopolitical environment, both the Northern and Southern routes involve transit through Russia and Iran, respectively. In her assessment, both countries are likely to remain under sanctions for an extended period, while the routes themselves may be exposed to political and security-related instability.

At the same time, Samadashvili does not consider the main issue to be which particular country will gain the greatest political leverage from the corridor. In her view, all countries located along the route have their own role to play. However, a corridor is not merely a matter of geography. It is also about logistics and infrastructure capacity. Therefore, Samadashvili argues, the countries that will become most attractive — and consequently gain the greatest leverage — will be those that make the most progress in developing and ensuring these capabilities.

The emergence of new routes through Armenia, in Samadashvili’s view, does not mean that Georgia’s transit potential can easily be replaced by alternative routes. She draws attention to the country’s fundamental geographical advantage: Georgia is the only South Caucasus country with access to the Black Sea.

At the same time, Samadashvili believes that the expansion of regional connectivity through the new TRIPP project could potentially bring significant benefits to Georgia’s own transit potential. However, this would require Tbilisi to restore and strengthen strategic cooperation with the United States and the European Union, as well as resume political and economic engagement with them. In Samadashvili’s assessment, if Georgia remains isolated as a result of the current government’s policies, the country genuinely risks losing its position. In such a case, Western-backed transit projects could seek to bypass Georgia, even if alternative routes prove more expensive and time-consuming.

As Samadashvili explains, one of the objectives of these projects is to create alternatives to transit through Russia and Iran. Therefore, the inclusion of a country whose leadership, in her assessment, acts as a conduit for Russian interests could be perceived by Western partners as contradicting the very logic of such projects. Additional questions, the politician notes, have also arisen in connection with recent international investigations that raised concerns regarding the Georgian government’s policy toward Iran.

Samadashvili assigns particular importance in this new regional geography to the development of Georgia’s port infrastructure. She believes Georgia should make use of its advantage — access to the Black Sea — and build a deep-water port in Anaklia as soon as possible, since, according to her, there are no deep-water ports on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. At the same time, Samadashvili argues that Georgia has already missed an important opportunity. In her assessment, the Ivanishvili government undermined the implementation of the Anaklia port construction project, which was expected to involve significant participation from American and European investors. As a result, the project was effectively frozen for almost a decade.

According to Samadashvili, it remains unclear to what extent the current promises to build the port will actually be implemented. Discussions are already underway about potentially changing its parameters, which, in her view, could significantly limit its potential. At the same time, she regards the expansion of the capacity of the Port of Poti with additional U.S. assistance as encouraging. Overall, Samadashvili views the development of Georgia’s port system and the railway infrastructure connected to it as a way for Georgia to fully benefit from new connectivity projects linking Central Asia and Europe.

However, in her view, the country’s transit future cannot be separated from its domestic political course. Samadashvili emphasizes that, according to all opinion polls, including the latest ones, there remains a very strong consensus among Georgian voters in favor of Georgia’s European future.

She sees the problem not in changing public attitudes, but in what she describes as state capture. According to Samadashvili, Bidzina Ivanishvili and his government are taking the country in a direction different from the one chosen by Georgian society. At the same time, she rejects the notion that European integration has become a source of genuine political polarization among the population. According to her, at the voter level it remains a unifying issue. Samadashvili recalls that during the 2024 parliamentary elections, Ivanishvili’s government used the slogan “To the EU with dignity,” because maintaining voters’ trust required a promise of a European future.

However, Samadashvili argues that after the elections, the country’s foreign-policy course changed when the government refused to continue cooperation with the EU aimed at opening accession negotiations. Therefore, in her assessment, this is not a matter of society becoming polarized over the European choice, but rather of the ruling regime misleading citizens and its own voters, as well as violating the Constitution of Georgia, which obliges the government to do everything possible to ensure the country’s accession to the European Union.

She links the country’s prospects over the next five years primarily to whether the current political course will continue. If the current government remains in power, Samadashvili warns, the further erosion of state institutions and the strengthening of Russian influence could turn Georgia into a “black hole” of the region — a state that would formally continue to exist, but whose economic, political and social life would be entirely controlled by Russian interests.

In such a scenario, Samadashvili believes, Georgia could become a territory serving Russia’s interests. If Moscow continues to use Georgia as an extension of its own economic infrastructure, the country could face a high risk of sanctions pressure. She emphasizes that this would pose a serious security challenge not only to Georgia but to the entire region.

Samadashvili also links the future of relations with the United States to a change in Georgia’s political course. In her view, under the current regime, the situation is unlikely to change. Even if the U.S. administration pursues a more pragmatic and interest-based policy in the region, she believes Ivanishvili is convinced that he can remain in power only with Vladimir Putin’s support. Therefore, according to Samadashvili, Russia’s interests will always take precedence over American interests for Georgia’s current leadership. In her view, this situation could change only if the current leadership concludes that Russia is losing its position, Putin is weakening, and Georgia urgently needs to return to strategic cooperation with the West.

Samadashvili views the deepening of Georgia’s relations with China within the same broader logic of geopolitical choice. She points to a significant gap between the actual scale of cooperation and the goals being declared. In her view, apart from construction projects that are of interest to Chinese state-owned corporations, Georgia has relatively little to offer China in terms of pragmatic interests. Samadashvili also notes that China’s attempt to obtain control over the Anaklia project did not succeed because, according to her, Ivanishvili considered it too risky. She believes Ivanishvili views China as a tool for exerting pressure on Western countries, seeking to demonstrate to them that alternative potential partners exist. If the U.S. Congress supports an initiative to investigate the Ivanishvili government’s links with China, Samadashvili believes this could cause significant political damage to him.

According to Samadashvili, Russian influence in contemporary Georgia is increasing. She believes the Ivanishvili government operates on the assumption that satisfying Moscow’s interests is the key to maintaining power in the country and therefore complies with important strategic demands from Russia. As examples, Samadashvili cites what she describes as the authorities’ decision to copy Russian legislation on foreign agents, restrictions on the legal framework governing the activities of non-governmental organizations and the media, as well as restrictions on freedom of expression. All of this, the politician claims, has led to the termination of strategic cooperation with Georgia by the United States and the European Union.

According to Samadashvili, the United States cancelled its strategic partnership agreement, the European Union halted Georgia’s accession process, while political contacts and financial assistance were reduced. As a result, she argues, Georgia today remains formally an EU candidate country only in name. Looking ahead, she believes the European Union could also consider the possibility of suspending the visa-free regime for Georgia. Samadashvili describes these consequences as a strategic victory for Russia. According to her, Moscow has also strengthened its economic influence over Georgia: Russia remains a supplier of many strategically important goods, while exports of Georgian products — wine and other agricultural goods — to the Russian market continue to grow steadily.

However, in Samadashvili’s view, Russian influence is not limited to the economy. She also points to its penetration into state institutions. In particular, the politician draws attention to recently emerging information that Georgia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs entered into a contract with a Russian software-development company that could potentially gain access to highly sensitive data. At the same time, she emphasizes that this is only one example.

In addition, Samadashvili notes that the European Union recently imposed sanctions on the Kulevi oil refinery and certain companies in the cryptocurrency industry for assisting Russia in circumventing sanctions. In her view, this is merely “the tip of the iceberg” of the ways in which Russia uses Georgia’s infrastructure for its own interests. Another example she cites is a recent case involving the export of fuel by a Georgian company to Abkhazia, which, according to her, constituted a violation of Georgia’s law on occupied territories. At the same time, the final destination of the goods supplied remained unclear. However, Samadashvili claims that there are grounds to believe that the fuel may be used by Russian entities.

However, where Russia, in her view, has failed to achieve decisive influence is in the attitudes of Georgian voters. The overwhelming majority of Georgian citizens consider Russia the country’s main threat. Therefore, Samadashvili argues, Moscow has succeeded in securing a reliable partner in the form of the current government, but the majority of Georgians do not support that government. If democracy is restored in the country, she believes Russian influence will weaken because Ivanishvili will lose an election. This, Samadashvili argues, is precisely why the Russian-backed government is so afraid of holding free and fair elections.

Ultimately, Samadashvili views all these processes as components of a broader transformation of the South Caucasus. Russia, Türkiye, Iran, the European Union, the United States and China are all simultaneously present in the region, and, in her view, it is still too early to say who will emerge as the winner of the geopolitical competition for influence. However, Samadashvili believes that Georgia’s future could hold the key to answering that question.

At a time when both Armenia and Azerbaijan are seeking closer relations with Europe, while Georgia remains the only country in the region with EU candidate status, much, in Samadashvili’s view, will depend on whether Tbilisi returns to the path of European integration. If that happens, she believes, the European Union could become the most influential actor in the South Caucasus. If Russia continues to strengthen its influence in Georgia, this would reinforce Russia’s position throughout the region and undermine the interests of all three South Caucasus countries. This is why Samadashvili is convinced that Georgia’s swift return to the path of European integration serves not only the country’s national interests but also those of the region as a whole. In her assessment, the issue is no longer merely Tbilisi’s foreign-policy choice, but also what geopolitical configuration will ultimately take shape in the South Caucasus and what role Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Europe, Russia, Türkiye, Iran and China will play within it.