With Georgia Sliding Toward Russia, Former President Appeals For Renewed US Attention

WASHINGTON -- As Washington looks for ways to push the threat of a wider confrontation with Iran into the diplomatic rearview mirror, Georgia -- a small but strategically pivotal country just north of Iran -- is making a renewed case that the Caucasus should not slip further down the West's agenda, as protesters mark more than 560 days in the streets against what many see as the country's democratic unraveling.

For Georgia's embattled pro-democracy camp, any de-escalation in the Middle East could create space for Western allies to refocus on what they describe as an increasingly urgent political struggle at home: a slow-burning democratic crisis and Russia's expanding influence through Georgia's ruling establishment.

In an interview with RFE/RL in Washington on June 16, Georgia's fifth president, Salome Zurabishvili, warned the West risks "giving away" Georgia to Moscow's interests through inattention, even as Tbilisi becomes increasingly central to the wider strategic balance across the Caucasus.

Her warning came just hours after receiving Freedom House's 2026 Mark Palmer Prize, an award she said carried symbolic weight for Georgian civil society after nearly two years of sustained protests and intensifying repression. "I think it means that they are not forgotten," Zurabishvili said.

That sense of being overlooked has sharpened as global crises multiply. But Zurabishvili argued that if tensions with Iran ease, Washington should see Georgia not as a peripheral democracy in trouble but as a central node in the next phase of regional competition. "America cannot just give away Georgia to Russia's interests," she said.

Zurabishvili's term as president ended on December 29, 2024, amid a political crisis, after she rejected the results of October parliamentary elections and vacated the presidential palace on the day her successor was sworn in.

Georgians have been protesting for nearly two years amid intensifying repression.

The former president's remarks come at a time when the ruling Georgian Dream party has sought to position itself as an indispensable regional actor amid Middle East instability -- even presenting a recent phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio as evidence of a diplomatic thaw with Washington.

Zurabishvili dismissed that effort as political theater. "They've been lobbying with some not very efficient lobbies in Washington," she said. "But they don't understand that you cannot lobby on one side and then flirt with the enemies of the people that you are lobbying."

A Growing Gray Zone

Zurabishvili painted a picture of a government that, in her view, no longer pursues an independent strategic course but instead shapes its foreign policy to stay within the limits of what Russia would tolerate. "They really don't have a strategy," she said. "Their strategy is to try to be close to anybody that they are allowed by Russia to be close to."

That has produced a foreign policy she described as opportunistic and inconsistent -- aligning where useful with actors ranging from Hungary to Slovakia, while attempting periodic resets with Washington and Brussels.

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But her deeper warning centered less on diplomacy than on infrastructure. According to Zurabishvili, Georgia is increasingly functioning as a "gray zone" -- a place where sanctions enforcement, financial oversight, and border controls are becoming harder to monitor. "By now, Georgia has become a gray zone where everything can happen," she said.

She cited what she described as cases of foreign nationals obtaining Georgian documentation, largely unregulated cryptocurrency activity, and the arrival of vessels linked to Russia's so-called shadow fleet at Georgian ports.

She also pointed to more than 100 weekly flights between Georgia and Russia, arguing the sheer scale of movement raises questions about enforcement capacity.

The concern, she suggested, is not simply criminality but strategic permissiveness: a system increasingly vulnerable to exploitation by Russian networks and other sanctioned actors.

The Russian Model

At home, Zurabishvili said the domestic political environment has deteriorated sharply. She described a state apparatus where parliament functions largely as a rubber stamp, opposition leaders face mounting legal pressure, and new laws increasingly criminalize dissent. "It cannot get much worse," she said.

Among her gravest concerns is an ongoing effort to ban opposition parties through Georgia's Constitutional Court, a move that could radically narrow political space ahead of future elections.

She said hundreds of people she described as "conscience prisoners" remain in detention. The system, she argued, increasingly resembles the Kremlin's model of political control. "It's a very Russian model," she said.

But she emphasized one major distinction: Georgian civil society remains active, organized, and defiant.

For nearly two years, protesters have remained on the streets, resisting what they see as Georgia's accelerating authoritarian turn. For Zurabishvili, that resilience is now colliding with a changing geopolitical environment.

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Last week, the US House of Representatives passed legislation targeting Russian, Chinese, and Iranian influence across the Caucasus -- a sign, she said, that Washington may finally be beginning to look more closely at the region's shifting fault lines.

Still, she questioned why such scrutiny required legislation at all. "What I'm surprised of is that it should need legislation," she said.

Her broader concern is that while the West has adapted to Russia's military threat, it remains behind in countering the Kremlin's hybrid tools of disinformation, political infiltration, economic pressure, and increasingly artificial intelligence. "What is done about the use of artificial intelligence to interfere?" she asked.

Looking ahead, she warned that Georgia's ruling party may be entering a period of internal instability. She pointed to arrests within its own ranks and signs of growing political anxiety as evidence that Georgian Dream's confidence may be eroding alongside Russia's own wartime image. "The yesterday's Putin is no longer the strongman of Europe," she said.

That volatility, she argued, could make snap elections more likely. "They might be tempted by just throwing elections in advance," she said, although warning that Georgia's opposition remains fragmented and insufficiently prepared.

To confront what she sees as an increasingly consolidated authoritarian system, she said, the opposition will need something more cohesive than conventional electoral politics. "A united national front."

For Zurabishvili, the task of restoring democracy belongs to Georgians. But she said Western allies still bear responsibility for understanding the wider strategic stakes.

Because if Iran fades from the top of Washington's foreign policy agenda, she argues, the Caucasus may be where the next test of Western resolve quietly unfolds.