Georgian politician Salome Zourabichvili has been among the vanguard pushing for the country to swing back toward its formerly Western direction and away from Russian and Chinese influence.
It hasn’t been easy. In 2024, the Russian-aligned Georgian Dream party the country’s parliament following an election that independent observers said was marred by voter intimidation. Zourabichvili, who was elected in 2018 to Georgia’s presidency, has refused to recognize the election results and the subsequent appointment of Mikheil Kavelashvili as president.
After weathering mass protests, the government has upped the pressure by prosecuting Georgian opposition politicians and introducing new laws affecting free speech.
In response, the U.S. Congress has advanced a slate of sanctions against Georgian Dream officials—although the bipartisan bill has yet to pass due in part to opposition by Sen. Markwayne Mullin, the Hill reported. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, meanwhile, has responded to the threat of sanctions with a letter that is openly critical of the Trump administration.
In an interview with Foreign Policy, Zourabichvili outlined how Georgia has adopted Russia’s authoritarian playbook, how sanctions on Georgia’s political elite could help spur change, and why American policy needs Georgia.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Foreign Policy: What’s your assessment of the political situation now in Georgia?
Salome Zourabichvili: It’s a departure from everything Georgia was before. We have a ruling party that is really reduced to a dozen people, but controlling everything, all the institutions, all the municipalities, local services.
But at the same time, they are now behaving like criminal clans toward each other. So there’s a lot of infighting going on. They’re accusing each other of having stolen state money, by the hundreds of millions—the sums are incredible.
So there’s this big confusion within the ruling party, which is not governing the country, they’re just settling scores within their group and settling the score with the rest of the population by violence, repression, hate speech, everything that you can imagine, to dismissal from jobs.
It’s really the Russian handbook, right? How do you put down civil society and political life through different laws, different pressures in a very mixed and sophisticated manner? So one day it’s violence, the next day it’s not doing anything, letting things quiet down, but displacing people from jobs, which is quieter and not so visible.
FP: That playbook in Russia has been very successful. Georgia, though, has a longer history of being a democracy than Russia.
SZ: Well, we have two differences. One is that we have a civil society, so it’s much more difficult to really crush down. It’s still vibrant. It’s still there. And the other difference is that the power itself is not as consolidated and homogeneous as [it is in] the Kremlin. Here you have many different circles, many different clans.
FP: Are you personally worried about arrest?
SZ: I’ll probably not be on the first list. For the time being, they’re selecting more the political leaders in order to show that the political parties are really divided. But you cannot exclude anything. It’s clear that in this strategy, there is no red line, right?
FP: So how optimistic are you that things will change?
SZ: They have to change. They have to change because we really have these two worlds, neither of which is strong and effective in reaching its objective. But nobody knows which one is crumbling down—the ruling party as one center of power and the rest of the society.
But it cannot continue like that, for sure. Because the country is not governed. There is no more investment from outside. There are still some tourists in the summer, because the summer was quieter. But there are so many people out of jobs that are not going to contribute to the budget anymore.
FP: What is the most likely scenario for change? Because there were massive protests, but they didn’t have the impact people hoped. So maybe street protest is not the way to go?
SZ: There are only two scenarios that we know: elections, yes, and street protests, until you get to elections. The other alternative is some form of insurrection, which is not in the tradition of Georgia.
But there has to be resistance. And this resistance has to be better supported from outside. But it’s essentially moral support, because what else can our partners do today?
That means that they have to understand better what is happening in Georgia. We’re fighting Russia, which is fighting Georgia with hybrid tools and with soft power.
My conviction is that the European and American partners should be worried about the fact that Russia is testing what they can achieve through soft power. Now they have all the instruments of soft power. They have social networks, cyberattacks. So it’s a mixture, of course—money, even if it’s not the main instrument of action, but money in order to have groups that are operating for them.
FP: What specifically would you want to see from U.S. foreign policy?
SZ: The problem is that it has been very late. The Biden administration was talking about sanctions all the time, raising this issue, and in a way, getting people accustomed to it without really acting until the very last day.
Sanctions in Georgia work because it’s a small country, because everybody knows everybody, and so you know someone who has not been able to travel or has problems with bank accounts.
FP: So sanctions work almost on a social level?
SZ: Yes, that’s what I’m saying. It works on the second circle, and maybe to some extent, on the first circle, right? It’s not going to work on [Georgian Dream leader Bidzina] Ivanishvili. It’s important, but it cannot be the only instrument, and especially if you talk about it, then it should be delivered. Otherwise, it becomes like an empty threat.
But we are lacking policy statements about Georgia saying that this is not acceptable. This is a government that is going toward Russia. Georgia’s instability and Georgia getting back into Russia means that it’s compromising Azerbaijan, Armenia, these transit zones, and in general, the role of the Caucasus.
We need to see that the outside world is seeing clearly what’s happening, and clarity about the situation. Internally, the people need to understand that they are seen.
FP: So sanctions to pressure the elite and public statements to make the Georgian people feel confident in protesting?
SZ: Not only statements; it’s really a policy saying that we are ready, for instance, to have a new strategic partnership with Georgia. We need Georgia because we need Azerbaijan, Armenia. A new agreement brokered by President [Donald] Trump is only valid if Georgia is on board. We need a government [in Georgia] that stops playing into the hands of Russia, into the hands of China, into the hands of all the enemies of the United States. That has to be said. And if you said it at a high level, it might have some effect.
FP: You met with Trump in December 2024, and you’re here in Washington today talking to people in Congress. What signals have you gotten from the administration and Congress?
SZ: My so-called meeting [with Trump] was a short social meeting. I wanted to remind him of the existence of Georgia—which he knows because he has visited in the past, and he did mention that he remembered—and to mention that we need the attention of the United States.
The message today to all the members of the Congress is that Georgia desperately needs attention because American interests in the region are also at stake. It’s not for no reason that America invested for 30 years. It was not only for the sake of liking the Georgians. It’s because there was clear interest in this region that is the key to opening Central Asia out of the influence of both Russia and China.
If anyone, the Russians know that Tbilisi and Georgia are the key to the Caucasus. America and Europe are losing Georgia to the Russians without trying anything.
FP: Were you able to meet with the Trump administration during this visit?
SZ: I met with the State Department, at the level of the people that are in charge. But there, too, there is a feeling that the policy is not yet finalized.
FP: The policy on sanctions is not finalized?
SZ: The policy toward the region. There is this enthusiasm about Armenia and Azerbaijan, which could be seen as, “Well, we do not need Georgia.”
But in fact, that’s not the case geographically, historically. And Armenia is fragile. It’s very courageous. I keep on saying that I think the prime minister is doing an extremely courageous job, and the results that were brokered by Trump are extremely important for the whole region. But still, Armenia, without Georgia, cannot continue, right?
FP: If there is a Russian victory in Ukraine, however you define that, what does that mean for Georgia?
SZ: Maybe [Moscow] can save face. But it’s not a victory when three years and a half after the war, you have lost so much, including politically and in terms of the outside prestige.
So that’s not a victory and [the Russians] know that. And that is the reason for what they are doing in Georgia. It’s compensation for what has happened in Ukraine, and testing something that is much more in their capabilities, because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is [former] KGB, and it’s what he knows how to do. He doesn’t know anything about military matters, right? So he was in the hands of his military [in Ukraine]. In this case [in Georgia], he knows what it means to be using agents, using different groups, subversion, divisions, the manipulation of elections.
And it’s also this soft policy, which is now tested in Moldova, was tested in Romania, might be tested in Ukraine, once they have a cease-fire, right? So it’s a soft policy that you can apply to any place. You do not need to have common borders. You do not need to invade somewhere. So you can use it in the Czech Republic, in Poland, and in Western Europe.
The post The West Is Losing Georgia to Russia, Zourabichvili Says appeared first on Foreign Policy.
