Officials in Moscow and their allies in Abkhazia and South Ossetia all canceled meetings with international diplomats brokering the discussions, casting the future of the talks into question.
While the decision isn’t likely to have a practical effect on people’s freedom to travel, it does signal a potential shift in Brussels’s approach to Georgia’s breakaway territories.
In South Ossetia, meanwhile, the authorities have remained completely silent on the issue. Most residents in both territories hold Russian citizenship, raising the prospect they could be drafted.
Land ownership is a sensitive issue in Abkhazia. The deal also sparked controversy in Georgia proper, where critics accused the government of closing its eyes to Russian expansion.
Because official statistics are nonsense, we look to personnel reshuffles to understand where the government recognizes it is underperforming. Our weekly briefing.
Many outsiders have been calling on Georgia to take advantage of Russian weakness to reclaim its lost territories. But Georgians themselves aren’t having it.
Every country in the region has its own relationship with self-proclaimed breakaway republics, forcing them to reckon in their own ways with Russia’s moves in Ukraine.
