Letter From the Editors

Mass protests erupted in Georgia this week over the ruling Georgian Dream party’s decision to postpone European integration until 2028. Following calls from the opposition, protesters took to the streets, exploding firecrackers, building barricades of trash cans and tires, and even setting fire to the parliament building. Law enforcement responded with tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets. As Maria Litvinova reports in Republic, many of the protesters were students, who, as one young woman put it, “want to live in an open and free world, without homophobia or dictatorship.” But, according to Kommersant’s Georgy Dvali, “many Georgians, especially in provincial areas, view the protests as a threat to stability. They are concerned about a possible deepening of the economic and political crisis.”

Interestingly, some Russian citizens participated in the rallies. One, who was in Georgia as a tourist, called the demonstrations “protests lite compared to what’s going on back home in Russia, where OMON riot police beat people and then the Federal Security Service locks them up for long terms for daring to disagree with something.”

And, to be sure, after six days of marches, both sides were still holding their ground. As Litvinova explains, “Georgian Dream has no intention of relinquishing power and is prepared to fight to the bitter end. But the protesters have no intention of giving in either.” Experts say that the Georgian government will survive the unrest. As Vadim Mukhanov explains in an interview with NG, “The opponents of Georgian Dream are not united and do not have any charismatic leaders.”

Meanwhile, in an article for Izvestia, Farkhad Ibragimov draws parallels between the Georgian protests and Kiev’s EU rallies of 2013-2014, which were also triggered by a rejection of EU integration policy. In both cases, he says, society took this rejection as a “threat to their country’s ‘bright European future’ and supposed democracy. And in both cases, the protests were accompanied by overt Western interference.” Thus, he writes, “the Georgian authorities will have to find a balance between domestic calm and foreign policy priorities to avoid a repeat of the Ukrainian scenario and maintain stability in the country.”

Indeed, over 10 years on, the Ukrainian scenario is not one that bears repeating. As Andrei Smolyakov reports in Novaya gazeta Europe, Ukraine’s European aspirations were all reporters wanted to talk about at a NATO ministerial meeting this week. The ministers, however, were reticent, electing not to voice any long-term plans until Donald Trump returns to the White House in January. One thing they did discuss at their meeting was the establishment of a new NATO command to “optimize” the delivery of weapons to Kiev and “burden sharing” should Trump cut US aid to Ukraine.

But Europe is also facing its own threats from Russia. In an interview with Republic, political analyst Igor Gretsky points out that “Russian aggression against Ukraine is not a regional war but an element of a much broader picture.” And Smolyakov writes that NATO has not been coping well with the new hybrid threats from Russia that it has been facing on a daily basis, comparing the alliance to “like a frog sitting in a pot of water that’s getting increasingly hotter***and did not notice when the water started boiling.”

All this raises the question: Why, 33 years after the signing of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Accords, which effectively dissolved the Soviet Union, is the world still stuck at the juncture of East and West? In an interview with AiF, Valentina Matviyenko says the reason for this is based on “the organic, centuries-old desire of the Western elite to inflict a strategic defeat on us as a civilization.*** They want us, ideally, not to exist at all.” But she also says that “if there is an opportunity to talk, we should talk.” Let’s hope she truly means it: The world cannot loiter at these crossroads for much longer.