By Eka Janashia

November 19th, the CACI Analyst

In mid-October, the prosecutor of the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda visited Georgia in an effort to open a probe into war crimes committed during the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008. “There are no substantial reasons to believe that the opening of an investigation would not serve the interests of justice,” she said.

On October 13, the prosecutor filed a 160-page “request,” involving the details of suspected crimes attributed to the Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian sides, before the ICC three-judge panel. The panel will make a decision on whether to launch an investigation in Georgia covering the period from July 1, 2008 to October 10 of the same year. 

By Eka Janashia

November 6, the CACI Analyst

On October 10, Georgia’s PM Irakli Garibashvili made an unplanned visit to Baku to meet with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev. The visit came after statements by Georgian officials on a possible restoration of gas supplies from Russia. Given Azerbaijan’s central role in Georgia’s gas sector, the move could damage the partnership between Tbilisi and Baku. 

By Eka Janashia

October 12th, the CACI Analyst

On September 18, one day after his release from jail, Tbilisi’s city court returned Gigi Ugulava – the leader of opposition United National Movement (UNM) party and former Tbilisi mayor – to prison. The court found Ugulava guilty of misspending public funds and sentenced him to four years and six months in prison. The original sentence implied a nine-year term, but the act of amnesty, adopted by the Georgian parliament in 2012, halved his time in jail.

By Carolin Funke

October 6th, 2015, The CACI Analyst

In the absence of Euro-Atlantic guarantees for deeper economic and political integration, Georgia is further diversifying its cooperation with states outside the Western hemisphere. Over the last year, Georgia has particularly been strengthening ties with the People’s Republic of China, which seeks to increase its presence in the South Caucasus as part of its Silk Road Economic Belt. Due to declining Western involvement in the region, the U.S. and European Union have little reason to complain about Tbilisi’s new alignments. Nevertheless, anchoring China as a long-term player in the region will likely lead to a further decline of Western influence in Georgia.

By Tomáš Baranec

October 2nd, 2015, The CACI Analyst

According to a recent survey by the U.S. National Democratic Institute, support for membership in the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) has doubled in Georgia since 2014, to 31 percent. Simultaneously, support for the trade agreement between Georgia and the EU fell from 80 percent before the Ukraine crisis to 68 percent in April 2015. Many commentators have linked this development with a temporal disappointment among Georgians with the country’s slow western integration following the Eastern Partnership (EaP) summit in Riga. Others stress the Russian “soft offensive” on Georgia conducted through Russian-sponsored media and NGOs. However, the underlying reasons for why increasing numbers of Georgians become receptive to demands for reorienting the country towards Russia may be deeper, less temporal and much more serious.