How Russia wants to cut off Georgia from the West

Passing the "foreign agent" law, written by Russian legislation, has ultimately created very serious problems for Georgia's path to the EU. The EU leaders have decided to freeze the country's accession process.

"In the case of Georgia, it is still unclear if it will be a part of this big wave of enlargement. I sincerely hope that this will be the case and that after the elections in October, we will restart work to catch up so that Georgia can be a part of the next big EU enlargement," said Paweł Herczyński, EU Ambassador to Georgia.

This statement was a real shock for the ruling party Georgian Dream.

Read more to understand the political situation Georgia found itself in three months ahead of the parliamentary elections in the article by Yurii Panchenko, a European Pravda editor – Georgia predicts revolution: How Tbilisi prepares for decisive elections.

Sanctions against the Georgian authorities were imposed only by the United States, and even those were not particularly strong.

Now it's time for real restrictions. And first and foremost, they have been imposed on Georgia's security sector.

The European Commission announced the freezing of 30 million euros allocated to support Georgia's Defence Forces under the European Peace Facility (EPF). As later clarified by Ambassador Herczyński, direct assistance that the EU had previously sent to the Georgian government will also be reduced.

Instead, these funds will be redirected to support civil society and the media. This latter point particularly angered Georgian officials.

On 5 July, the US Department of Defense issued a statement to "indefinitely postpone" the joint exercises with Georgia, Noble Partner.

For the Georgian authorities, the problem wasn't so much the restrictions themselves, they were hardly a surprise, but the statements by Western diplomats directly linking these actions to the de facto abandonment of the course towards European integration and rapprochement with Russia.

Such statements can have extremely negative electoral consequences for the current government, which assures its people that Tbilisi has not abandoned its Western course.

Parliamentary elections are set to be held in Georgia on 26 October.

However, Georgian Dream does not intend to change its strategy. They insist that all these Western restrictions are primarily of a pre-election nature.

Maintaining the illusion of a pro-Western course is becoming increasingly difficult, even among their most loyal supporters.

Moreover, the parliamentary elections this fall will be held under rules that increase the opposition's chances of success. For the first time, they will be conducted solely under a proportional system, without majoritarian districts.

However, another change works against the opposition. The electoral threshold has been raised from 1% to 5%.

Therefore, the Georgian opposition needs to find the best format for unification to win. Sociological surveys commissioned by opposition parties indicate that the most successful scenario would be to run for the elections with three or four forces, each of which would guarantee to pass the electoral threshold.

The process of creating opposition blocs has begun.

On the other hand, the ruling party is likely to rely on pre-election bribery.

And Russia might help them. For example, the Kremlin might completely abolish visas for Georgian citizens or take steps that the Georgian authorities would present as Russia's readiness to return control of the annexed Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Tbilisi.

But in exchange, Moscow will likely facilitate an even greater break between Georgia and the West.

In this context, the statement by Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service about preparing another "colour revolution" in Georgia becomes very important.

Russia hopes that the elections will end with massive protests, after the suppression of which even minimal restoration of relations between the Georgian authorities and the West will be impossible. And it seems that Russia is ready to actively work towards implementing this scenario.