On Tuesday, Russian state media featured presenter Olga Skabeyeva explaining how people in the United Kingdom are being forced to eat squirrels because of the “food shortage.” According to Skabeyeva, people in Britain are willing to sacrifice to support Ukraine to the extent that, “They will eat squirrels, but still supply howitzers.”
It may sound strange that even a propaganda show on Russia’s all propaganda network would blithely pretend the people of the U.K. are forced to eat rodents to keep up their support for the Ukrainian government. However, this is part of the ongoing narrative; one that says Germany is facing economic disaster, the European Union is about to splinter, the United States is on the brink of civil war, and only Russia is really capable of ruling—sorry, make that saving—the world.
But if there’s anything fragile and prone to breakage at the moment, it’s the fantasy Russia has woven to hold its own people in check. How tattered that illusion is becoming was very visible overnight in the first place that Russia dragged its army in the post-Soviet era.
On Russian media, Russia is weathering the war just fine, stronger than ever, while the rest of the world suffers the withdrawal of Russia’s loving embrace. It’s just one part of a propaganda bubble that’s necessary to allow a guy who is desperately afraid to travel even in his own country to still keep up the pretense of being a strong leader. The narrative—Russia strong and good, everyone else weak and corrupt—is what keeps the Russian people willing to hand over their lives and their children so that Putin and his oligarchs can convert them into mansions and yachts.
At points in the past year, that narrative has looked a little frayed around the edges, but Putin has moved quickly to quash any evidence of unrest using his trademark application of excess force to deal with the first sign that someone isn’t following the script. Putin has every reason to believe his bubble will hold inside Russia. He has fear and ignorance on his side, and those are powerful allies (apply your own Yoda-ism here). But where Putin’s grip is not so tight, things look to be slipping a bit sideways.
See if any of this sounds familiar: After the fall of the Soviet Union, the nation declared its independence from Moscow. However, to keep its new neighbor under control, Russia sent former Soviet forces into a section of the country and fostered a “separatist” region, sparking an internal conflict that ended with a ceasefire agreement and an uneasy, frequently broken peace. While the separatist areas were ostensibly operating on their own, Russian soldiers and military equipment were constantly on hand and the local government was completely under the thumb of Russian advisers and political operatives.
Meanwhile, in the remainder of the former Soviet nation, struggles with democracy and corruption made the path forward anything but straight. The curves sometimes sent the nation leaning back toward Moscow until a peaceful “revolution” brought in a new government that took a turn toward the West and democracy. That included a vocal desire to become part of NATO.
Russia immediately objected. They made it clear that the reason they were supporting the separatists was because they didn’t want a competent, pro-Western democracy on their border. They also made it clear that any move to join NATO would be seen as an attack on Russia.
Even as everyone else was cheering the new democracy rising, Russia moved to recognize the areas it controlled as independent nations. The larger government responded by asking for international peacekeepers to monitor the border situation. Russia replied by providing the separatists with more weapons, and within a few weeks a low-key war burned all along the border between the separatist regions and the rest of the nation.
When the government refused to back away, Russia invaded, indiscriminately bombed civilian areas, leveled towns with artillery, blockaded the coast, occupied port cities, and sent missiles raining down on the capital. Less than two weeks after the invasion began, Russia forced on the nation an agreement that said Russia was blameless for the invasion, would pay no reparations for the damage done, and demanded international recognition of the Russian-occupied separatist regions.
If that last part sounds different, it’s because this was Georgia, not Ukraine.
The Rose Revolution that brought a pro-democracy, pro-Western government to power in Georgia happened in 2003, over a decade before the Maidan “Revolution of Dignity” in Ukraine. It was five years later when Russian tanks rolled on Georgia and the same historians who had somehow believed history was a thing that could be stopped were forced to admit that it had started up again.
Some of the events of the war in Georgia seem painfully familiar, from images of burned out and bomb-blasted buildings to numerous reports of war crimes. However, one critical part seems very, very different: Just one day after the first bombs fell in Tbilisi, government offices were evacuated. Three days later, negotiations began. In two weeks, it was over … or at least, back to low-level fighting along the separatist border.
Oh, and the situation in Georgia wasn’t helped by the fact that at the time Russia launched the invasion, 2,000 of Georgia’s best troops were in Iraq, serving as part of the U.S.-led coalition in that country. To what extent the shortage of those troops contributed to Georgia quickly agreeing to negotiate isn’t clear. That the whole U.S. entry into Iraq had contributed to the idea that international borders were something powerful states ignored definitely was clear.
To be fair to Georgia, the deal they signed onto wasn’t by any means one-sided. Yes, Russia had to pay for none of their destruction and Georgia had to bend a ceremonial knee by agreeing Russia had done nothing wrong, but Russian forces agreed to leave the areas they had occupied and open the ports. Even the end state for the separatist regions was still up for question. To get the war over and their territory at least back to where it was at the outset—plus some calls for international arbitration—likely looked like a pretty decent arrangement.
What Putin got out of Georgia was mostly a few points designed for global consumption:
- Russia was still capable of using its military in the post-Soviet era.
- It would consider any move to join NATO to be justification for invasion.
- It would foster local knots of trouble makers, providing them with weapons and training, to keep its neighbors fighting internal fires and remind them that things could always be worse.
What Georgia got following the war was some good old-fashioned ethnic cleansing that saw ethnic Georgians killed and displaced from the Russian-occupied areas. It also got a slow backslide away from moving to European-style democracy and toward supporting more kleptocratic authoritarianism.
It also got Georgian-Russian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili. Ivanishvili, who fattened up on Russian banking after the Soviet collapse, wasn’t even a Georgian citizen when he wandered into the country in 2011 and started his new “Georgian Dream” political party. He quickly discovered that he had no problem manipulating the vote in the traditional way, by buying it, or getting the press to go along by buying it. For a couple of years, Ivanishvili was prime minister, but for most of the last decade-plus he’s been content to run things through his underlings—the way Putin did before he got around to destroying all safeguards in the Russian constitution.
Ivanishvili has maintained good relations with other Russian oligarchs (including during the invasion of Ukraine), and in 2018 his party took care of the threat that they might be removed from power through popular vote by changing the Georgian constitution to make it very difficult for that to happen. This led to protests, which led to the Georgian Dream party agreeing to a compromise, which was followed by Georgian Dream walking away from the compromise. The current prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, is a member of Georgian Dream as well as a long-time employee of one of Ivanishvili’s companies.
Georgia’s current president, Salome Zourabichvili, is a more puzzling figure. She’s actually French, the daughter of Georgian immigrants, and was living in Paris when she helped to negotiate that 2008 treaty with Russia. She speaks only limited Georgian. Though she was endorsed by Georgian Dream, she has actually called herself an independent. As the first woman elected to high office in post-Soviet Georgia, she’s spoken out against the misogyny of many governments. On the other hand, she’s been at best lukewarm in supporting LGBTQ rights after saying “our country is dealing with enough controversies and doesn’t need any further provocation from any side of the LGBTQ debate." Her election might be seen as a repudiation of at least some part of the Georgian Dream agenda, but the legislation has already taken the opportunity to largely gut the role of president.
That brings us up to date in Georgia: an increasingly authoritarian party in charge backed by a oligarch with both his money and his support in Moscow; a prime minister who is a tool of that oligarch; a president who has been pulling away from that party; a populace that is royally pissed at that party over its ties to Russia.
Take a breath. Because all of that is just background. Here’s what happened yesterday in Georgia.
On Tuesday, the legislature in Georgia came one step closer to approving a new piece of legislation that requires registration of foreign agents and assigns penalties to those who do not comply. On the surface, that doesn’t sound extraordinary. After all, the United States has just such a system: FARA. A violation of the FARA laws was one of the charges levied against former Donald Trump Campaign Chief Paul Manafort. That operatives of foreign governments should be listed doesn’t seem that bad.
In fact, the group inside Georgia that first proposed this law, an organization called “People’s Power,” insisted that it was modeled after U.S. law—which is strange, because People’s Power is a pro-Russian group that exists to spread propaganda about the West.
And in fact, the proposed law in Georgia goes well beyond FARA.
Following the Soviet collapse, Georgia was one of the countries that was very open to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) coming in to assist. As a result, NGOs played a very significant role in both helping Georgia set up its initial government and meeting many of the needs of a populace in the midst of an imploding infrastructure. This actually did include NGOs funded by that great boogey of the far-right, George Soros, as well as assistance from the U.S. government.
Not only do many feel grateful to the NGOs for the role they played, for years starting a new NGO in Georgia was so simple that literally hundreds were born there, many of which went on to integrate themselves into roles once played by the government. NGOs—large and small—remain a significant part of the Georgian economy and social system, with many Georgians employed by NGOs. They’re seen as both powerful and influential on the nation’s politics.
Members of People’s Power have admitted that just putting the bill out there was designed to undercut support for NGOs and make people suspicious of who is actually behind them.
The new law would mean that not only are all those NGOs in Georgia on the list of potential foreign agents, so are all their employees. Many Georgians see this as an outright power move by Georgian Dream to not just remove the thorn of groups that might pester them about “rights,” but to put everyone involved on notice that they can be arrested at any time, for any reason. Under FARA, only those NGOs that are themselves controlled directly by a foreign government are required to register. (In the U.S., that means about 5% of NGOs.)
The other massive difference between FARA and the law in Georgia is that it isn’t restricted to those who represent foreign governments, it affects anyone who receives foreign funding, even indirectly. It wouldn’t matter if you’re the vice president of Google’s local operations or a shelf-stocker at The Gap—both would go on the list. So would every company that is a subsidiary or partner with firms outside of Georgia.
The proposed law prohibits foreign agents from a number of activities, including a completely undefined prohibition on taking part in “politics.” People in Georgia—and outside of Georgia—have noticed that this law isn’t like FARA. In fact, it’s a way of putting a large portion of the population on a list that allows them to be prosecuted for any kind of political activity. And that includes members of the press, who have already found their protections heavily eroded over the last five years.
Many worry that this bill isn’t the end goal, it’s the first step toward a total lockdown of Georgian society that would leave Ivanishvili and crew in charge while silencing all opposition.
And that’s why this bill moving forward in the legislature on Tuesday resulted in thousands of people taking to the streets of Tbilisi. It’s seen not just a pro-Russian law, but as a law that sends Georgia down the road to being as repressive and authoritarian as Russia.
Will this uprising result in the Georgian Dream party being pushed out of power? Impossible to say at this point. The Georgia Dream party has already made claims about modifying the bill in an effort to cool the flames. Zourabichvili might move to make reassurances, or might join the protests. Garibashvili could always offer to resign—after all, Ivanishvili has other stooges to take his place. Maybe there will be another Maidan, a Rose Revolution 2.0. But events like that aren’t just about getting a big crowd out on any given night, it’s about keeping the pressure up over weeks.
This is definitely a “stay tuned” situation.
In any case, Russia’s sway over Tbilisi seems to be in definite peril, and a large part of that goes right back to the invasion of Ukraine, and the memory of the Georgian people.
On Monday, it was reported that Russian forces had closed off the “road of life” through Khromove, leaving Ukraine with only the dangerous T0504 highway to the southwest and some unpaved, and very muddy, routes in and out of Bakhmut.
However, on Tuesday Ukraine reportedly conducted a pair of counteroffensives in the area, restoring control of the Khromove road as well as pushing Russian forces at least 1 kilometer back from the T0504 near Ivaniske.
There is a bridge down along the T0504 south of Ivaniske, as well as a bridge out on the road through Khromove. Both of these appear to have been taken out by Ukrainian forces as a precaution meant to slow any Russian advance, but at the moment it’s Ukraine that has to work around this issue. In any case, Ukraine likely has better access now than it has held at any time in the last week or more.
Russia appears to have completely occupied the area inside Bakhmut east of the river. However Ukrainian forces appear to be holding at this point and reportedly made some advances on the north side of the city.
For days, the idea of Bakhmut being taken or Ukraine withdrawing has seemed imminent, but in the last couple of days it has seemed less likely to happen at any moment, even though increasing Ukrainian losses in the area could certainly make such a withdrawal a good idea. The military command in the area seems to be betting that Russian attempts to advance are near culmination, leaving Ukraine an opportunity. Let’s hope they’re right.
What do Americans really think about the issues? It turns out they are a surprisingly liberal bunch, as Rachael Russell of Navigator Research tells us on this week's episode of The Downballot. Russell explains how Navigator conducts in-depth research to fill in gaps in policy debates with hard data instead of pundit speculation. The challenge for Democrats is that many voters say they hold progressive beliefs but still pull the lever for Republicans. That imbalance, however, presents an opportunity—Democrats just have to seize it.
Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap the first round of voting in the race for Chicago mayor, which saw a progressive apocalypse averted; the resolution to the long-running uncertainty over the speakership in the Pennsylvania state House that saw Joanna McClinton make history; Rep. Elissa Slotkin's entry into Michigan's open Senate race, which makes her the first prominent candidate to run; and the inexplicable decision by conservatives to go dark on the airwaves for a full week following last week's primary in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.