To welcome or not to welcome: GD’s double standards on allowing Russians and Ukrainians into Georgia
18 February, 2022
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The latest practice of the Georgian authorities to selectively bar citizens of Russia and Ukraine from crossing the border reveals a worrying double standard. While Russian opposition politicians and Ukrainian journalists are returned from the Georgian border, prominent Kremlin propagandists and Duma MPs are welcome.
In February 2022 Russian libertarian politician Igor Efremov was not allowed to Georgia. A few weeks later, Andrey Davidov, another Russian opposition was barred from entry. In January 2022, a Russian opposition politician and former Duma Member Dmitry Gudkov, an ally of Alexey Navalny, was deported by the border police from the Tbilisi International Airport. Angered Gudkov reported that he planned meetings “with activists and diplomats” and was given no explanation why he could not enter Georgia. In October 2021, another key ally of Alexey Navalny, Lubov Sobol was turned back from the border. Sobol also complained that no explanation was given to her and there was no real reason for her not being let in. She asserted that she has never visited Abkhazia and has never made a statement against Georgia’s territorial integrity.
Ministry of Interior and Georgian Dream (GD) spokesmen claimed that Mr. Gudkov was in violation of the Georgian Law on Occupied Territories, however, it is easily verifiable that Gudkov visited Abkhazia a long time before the Law was enacted in 2009 and when the Russian Duma recognized Abkhazia’s independence, Gudkov was not the member. The Ministry of Interior also argued that under the Georgian Law on the Legal Status of Aliens and Stateless Persons, border police had the right to refuse Mr. Gudkov from entering Georgia.
This provision, however, was not used by the Ministry of Interior to bar Russian Duma’s acting MP Sergey Gavrilov from entering Georgia in 2019, against the warning from the opposition MPs and civil society groups. Gavrilov then presided over the Interparliamentary Orthodoxy Assembly from the chair of the Parliament’s Speaker - leading to mass demonstrations and riots in June 2019. In fact, back then GD leaders argued that there was no legal ground for not allowing Mr. Gavrilov to Georgia and that the Law on the Legal Status of Aliens was irrelevant.
This Law was also not used when in 2021 a high-profile veteran face of the Soviet and Russian propaganda - Vladimir Pozner, head of the Russian official propaganda agency - ITAR TASS - Sergei Mikhailov, and Roman Abramovich’s partner and oligarch David Davidovich came to Georgia to celebrate Posner’s birthday. This visit also led to protests from the civil society groups.
On the contrary, Georgian border guards seem to be quite protective when it comes to visiting Ukrainian citizens. In November 2021 Ukrainian journalist - Volodymyr Zolkin was banned from crossing into Georgia, also without an explanation. Though, apparently, Georgian security services were aware that Zolkin was preparing material about Saakashvili’s arrest and his health condition in prison.
Another Ukrainian celebrity journalist, Dmitri Gordon, editor-in-Chief of the online media outlet Alesia Batsman and Mikheil Saakashvili’s Ukrainian lawyer Evgen Grushovets were barred from entering Georgia in October 2021. Gordon’s visit was also connected to reporting on Saakashvili’s arrest, which Georgian authorities considered a sufficient reason to turn him back without an official explanation. Prime minister Gharibashvili was asked about Gordon’s case by the Formula Tv journalist exactly 17 times, but he dodged the question every single time. Head of the GD Irakli Kobakhidze was more direct - he accused Gordon of wanting to "stage a show". GD MP Giorgi Volski, also asserted that the Ukrainian journalist's goal was to "create a scandal" and if he were in place of the border guard, he would have done the same.
In November 2021, prominent Ukrainian blogger Pavel Kashchuk also reported that the Georgian authorities did not allow him to enter the country.
The saga of who is welcome and who is not, hit a new level of absurdity when a Ukrainian think-tank (Napalm-Ukraine) published a report last year, claiming that Georgia was allowing Russia’s Wagner Group’s odious leaders into Georgia, who ran a business there. Moran Security Group and Wagner Corporation are the largest armed groups in Russia, which are officially registered as private security companies. This investigation revealed that GRU-linked Kirill Krivko was running businesses in Georgia under a fake name. The State Security Service of Georgia (SSSG) denied the allegations about Krivko but acknowledged that he did, indeed, visit Georgia in 2019.
“Does Georgia’s hospitality include hosting Wagner mercenaries on its territory?” - a former Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) general Igor Guskov cynically inquired in a Facebook post. Guests are always welcome, the Georgian saying goes, however, if the guests are Russian opposition leaders and Ukrainian journalists, the saying does not seem to apply.
