How Russia is bringing a tiny neighbour to heel without waging war

Australia Broadcast Center

6 days ago

Zurab Japaridze has chosen to spend his last night as a free man standing outside an institution he loathes.
The Georgian opposition politician has joined a throng of demonstrators in front of the country's parliament.
Many are masked, trying to avoid the gaze of dozens of facial-recognition cameras. If identified, they're often fined more than $2,500 each.
Donning only a baseball cap, a fine is the least of Zurab's worries — tomorrow, he's likely going to jail.
"I had a feeling that sooner or later … they will start arresting politicians," says the 49-year-old father of three.
The "they" he's referring to are the increasingly authoritarian Georgian Dream party, which won office last year in an election marred with allegations of vote rigging and intimidation.
Until recently, Georgia, a former Soviet republic, had been a darling of Europe on a fast track to EU membership.
Now it has passed a raft of draconian laws, pulled out of EU talks and started jailing dissenters.
Zurab believes he knows exactly what is behind the abrupt volte-face.
"It's Russia," he says. "It's Russia's playbook."
Sandwiched between Europe and Asia on the edge of the Black Sea, Georgia has long had its fate determined by geography, sharing its northern border with Russia.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, it gained independence only to be invaded by Russia in 2008.
Moscow now controls 20 per cent of Georgian territory in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
But it's not just geography and history that connect Georgia to Moscow.
The man behind the ruling Georgian Dream party is a billionaire oligarch named Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his money in Russia by initially trading in electronics before moving into banking and metals processing.
He's notoriously reclusive, owning a glass castle overlooking the capital Tbilisi and a private menagerie which allegedly once housed a kangaroo.
Ivanishvili founded the Georgian Dream party on a pro-EU platform, but in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, he turned on the EU and the West.
He and his party started touting a conspiracy theory accusing a faceless so-called "Global War Party" of trying to push Georgia into a war with Russia, too.
Georgian Dream has since refused to sanction Moscow over its Ukraine invasion and has passed a raft of draconian laws, some mimicking those in Russia.
One is an anti-LGBTQ law that, among other things, prevents queer people from being portrayed in the media.
Another is a foreign agents law that targets NGOs, the media and civil society organisations.
Last December the US sanctioned Ivanishvili "for undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation".
Georgian Dream rejects all allegations that it's acting on behalf of Russia.
"This question is not a serious one, it's part of a kind of propaganda," Georgian Dream MP Tea Tsulukiani tells Foreign Correspondent.
But another senior political figure deeply disagrees.
Salome Zourabichvili, Georgia's last popularly elected president, was head of state for six years until Georgian Dream replaced her with a far-right ally after the disputed election last October.
But she has refused to step aside.
She believes Russia has realised previous military interventions — like in Ukraine and Georgia — have not been successful at taking over a country, so it's trying something new.
"They are experimenting [with] a new strategy, hybrid strategy … to control the country … through manipulation of elections, through propaganda through a proxy government," she says.
"If it works here to the end, if it's completely successful, it can be applied anywhere."
Georgian Dream's critics often compare Georgia's current trajectory to that of Belarus, a former Soviet republic led by a dictator who has become so close to Russia it let Moscow stage troops there for the invasion of Ukraine.
"We see the same potentially happening here in Georgia," says Jelle Postma, a former Dutch intelligence officer and founder of the NGO Justice for Prosperity, an organisation he describes as "an intelligence service for good".
"But they learned how to do it with Belarus, so the pace will be much faster here in Georgia and this will have a destabilising effect in the region," he says.
What is happening in Georgia should alarm the entire Western world, says Jelle Postma.
He and his team have spent years investigating how Russia has honed a playbook, which involves exploiting "family values" to influence societies, and ultimately benefit Moscow.
"What we see in Georgia is what you could say [is] a laboratory of hate," he says.
In the case of Georgia, to justify its pivot away from Europe, he says progressive, European values needed to be attacked.
"If you want more power as a government, and to be given that power, you need real fear, fear in the streets," he says.
"[A] fearmongering feeling and seeing riots — especially with some good photos in it — then you have your perfect playbook to get more votes and support to be allowed to become more dictatorial."
In Georgia that came in 2021 and 2023 when far-right thugs hunted down and attacked LGBT activists during Pride Month.
"Any group would do," says Jelle Postma, but "the LGBTQ community was the first" because they "are not well protected," he says. "There are only some NGOs who protect the LGBTQ community, which makes them just too easy of a target."
Georgian Dream has since targeted the LGBTQ community, journalists, NGOs and the opposition with restrictive laws that critics say crush dissent and are anti-democratic.
"It means that there's yet another confirmation that the playbook of hate works," he says.
"That means that with more confidence and with higher skill level, it will be rolled out even further in Africa, in the Asia Pacific, in Latin America, even in the United States."
As the sun sets behind the Tbilisi City Court, Zurab Japaridze ducks out for a quick smoke.
His hearing has been going on for hours and it's not going well.
"Whatever appeals we had, the judge said 'no' on every single [one] of them," he says, surrounded by reporters. "Whatever appeals the prosecutor's office had [the judge] just approves everything."
There is a widespread belief that the judiciary in Georgia has been captured by Georgian Dream.
A number of judges have been sanctioned by the UK and US.
"This is what was expected," says Zurab.
His wife Nata Koridze has been by his side all day.
"I'm so proud of him," she says. "He's definitely a man of principles and that's what I love about him, but it makes it very difficult to live in this country."
At nearly 6pm, the judge hands down his decision — Zurab is going into pre-trial detention.
He is handcuffed and led to the cells.
He's eventually sentenced to seven months in jail, the first of eight opposition figures to be jailed in the space of two weeks.
He's barred from holding elected office for two years.
In a letter written from prison, blue pen filling up every inch of an A4 piece of paper, Zurab has pleaded for European leaders to help Georgia.
"The repression aims to crush resistance," he writes, "but it has only hardened our resolve."
"Whether behind bars, or in the streets, we will not stop. No matter the cost we will continue on our own fight for freedom and democracy and we know that in the end, liberty will prevail."
Watch Foreign Correspondent tonight at 8pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.