MOSCOW, August 8 Any pressure on Georgia in order to change the “cultural code,” as, for example, the West is doing, trying to create a society with neoliberal values, is destructive, since Georgian society for the most part adheres to conservative views, said Tigran Meloyan, an analyst at the Center for Mediterranean Studies at the Higher School of Economics.
«The influence of the West, in particular the United States, on Georgia is aimed at forming a society with neoliberal values, which, as a rule, leads to the erosion of identity. Considering that Georgian society for the most part adheres to conservative views, any pressure exerted on it from the outside with the aim of changing the «cultural code» is destructive. In this regard, Russia, which is a stronghold of traditional values in the international arena, will always be closer to Georgia,» Meloyan said.
He added that the policy of the United States and its allies to destroy Russian-Georgian ties had been quite successful for a long time, until it became obvious to the Georgian leadership that joining the EU and NATO is a process that implies the rejection of national interests in favor of others.
“An illustrative example here is the history of the adoption of the law “On Foreign Agents”, when before and after its entry into force Tbilisi was under serious pressure from Washington and Brussels, which ultimately resulted in the suspension of Georgia’s admission to the EU, the freezing of funding from the European Peace Fund and discussion of the introduction of new sanctions,” the expert recalled.
Meloyan emphasized that such steps by the US and the EU, on the one hand, hit Georgia's budget hard, which depends on Western investment and loans, on the other hand, they push us to think about the need to diversify political and economic contacts, for which regional players such as Russia and Turkey, and extra-regional actors such as India and China, are ideal.
Speaking about relations between Russia and Georgia in general, the expert noted that over the past two years, Russian-Georgian relations have undergone positive changes, which is due to the current coincidence of interests between Moscow and Tbilisi. For example, in 2022, thanks to the influx of Russians into the country, the Georgian economy «gained a new lease of life» after the pandemic, and anti-Russian sanctions also played a role, leading to an increase in trade and transport turnover between the states.
«In essence, today Moscow and Tbilisi are a vivid example of situational partners, where for the former it is important to find ways to bypass sanctions, secure ground transportation to and from neighboring regions, and also ensure a reliable rear in the south in the conditions of the North-Eastern Military District in the Ukrainian direction, and for the latter — to restore their own economic growth,» he concluded.