For twenty years Georgia was the most pro-Western country in the former Soviet Union. It fought a war with Russia in 2008, wrote the goal of joining the European Union and NATO into its constitution, and received candidate status in 2023. A year later its government, led in all but name by the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, passed a law against foreign-funded organisations, claimed victory in an election the opposition does not accept, and suspended membership talks until 2028. Street protests lasted months. The opposition's leaders are now in prison or exile, and the government is moving to ban their parties.
The wider region and the powers around it: The South Caucasus between Russia and the West.
Where it stands · September 2026
On 16 September, Georgian Dream MPs voted for a bill repealing restrictions on protest, later attributing the vote to a technical error. On 19 and 20 September, Putin congratulated Kambolov on his election as president of South Ossetia. On 30 September, Tbilisi summoned Iran's ambassador over comments on a 17th century Georgian queen.
What the dispute is about
Peace or Europe. The government says the West wanted Georgia to open a second front against Russia in 2022 and punishes it for refusing. The opposition and Western governments say no one asked for that, and that the claim covers a turn towards Moscow and one-party rule.
Whose money. Most of Georgia's civic organisations and independent media lived on Western grants. The law of 2024 made them register as serving foreign interests. Its opponents named it the Russian law, after the statute Moscow used to close its own civil society.
The vote of 2024. Official results gave the governing party 54 percent. International observers reported pressure on voters and vote buying and did not say who had really won. The opposition boycotted parliament.
