Crisis in the Caucasus Part II: A War Without Missiles in Georgia
Given the shift in geopolitics surrounding the war in Ukraine, it’s more important than ever to understand how Putin and the Russian Federation’s imperial ambitions are unfolding in the 21 century.
The Cure presents Crisis in the Caucasus: Part II. This is the second installment of our three-part special feature on the Russia-backed political unrest seizing the central Eurasian Republic of Georgia.
The Kazbegi Municipality is a mind-meltingly beautiful region in Georgia that borders Russia to the north and the breakaway republic of South Ossetia to the south and west. The capital of Kazbegi is a paradisiacal little mountain town called Stepantsminda, home to an old Soviet sanatorium-turned-boutique hotel, A-framed guesthouses, outdoor gear stores, khinkali restaurants, and a mix of hiking, biking, and climbing outfitters. The ancient Gergeti Trinity Church—the textbook example of Georgian Orthodox architecture—sits wreathed in fog a thousand feet above town on the slopes of Mount Kazbek, a dormant stratovolcano that rises nearly 17,000 feet above sea level.
About ten miles south and west of Kazbek’s slopes lies the Truso Valley, billed by a local touring company as “the most beautiful valley in Georgia.” A bold claim, given Kazbegi’s alpine splendor, but not an unearned one. Mountains walled with rust-streaked cliffs and carpets of thick forest rise above the narrow dale. A Silk Road-era watchtower, built from stone quarried out of the adjacent mountainside, stands watch over the nearly abandoned town of Ketrisi. The Terek River runs down the valley’s center, past Ketrisi, through the shadow of a monastery-turned-guesthouse, and beside the border hamlet of Abano. At the end of a long dirt road that runs parallel to the river, the Truso Valley ends in a three-pronged fork of intersecting gorges.
On a high hill above this terminus sits the Zakagori Fortress, one of many crumbling ancient mini-castles that dot Kazbegi’s landscape. Beneath the old fortress sits its modern counterpart: a military checkpoint guarding the border to South Ossetia, the Russia-backed breakaway state at the center of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war.
Much like Putin’s current war in Ukraine, Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia was framed as a “peacekeeping operation” meant to “protect” the South Ossetian breakaway republic—despite the fact that Russian-backed militias initiated hostilities and the global community roundly denounced Putin’s actions. In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights determined that Russia maintains direct control over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another separatist Caucasian region to the west.
The 2008 war resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia—Shida Kartli, as it’s known in Georgian—and their expulsion from the region. It was one of Putin’s first forays into imperialist chicanery, and many war-affected Georgians remain internally displaced.
With the help of an old friend, I was able to get in touch with two of these displaced Georgians—a pair of brothers—who were gracious and bold enough to speak with me about their experience of displacement in 2008… and their experience now, 17 years later, as activists opposing the anti-democratic actions of their nation’s Russia-backed ruling party, Georgian Dream.
Pause.
For a little perspective, it’s worth mentioning something. My friend A—whom I introduced in Part I of this series and who drove me to Kazbegi—is a normal young Georgian guy into normal young guy things: his job, his girlfriend, pop culture, sports, etc. He’s super gregarious, charming, and basically a modern, internationally minded dude.
We texted back and forth about the situation, checking in. But as soon as I asked to interview him for this article, he went totally dark on me. I was surprised at his non-response, but I shouldn’t have been. I’ve heard the same from others with friends in Georgia—contacts who are reluctant to speak, unresponsive, or even actively returning money to international NGOs, fearing potential retribution from authorities whose surveillance tactics and violent crackdowns on protesters continue to escalate.
I don’t, of course, fault A for his hesitation—it’s dangerous, and he has a lot at stake. I only bring this up to underscore just how repressive Georgia’s situation has become… and to emphasize the courage of the brothers who did speak with me.
To protect their identities (and maintain alphabetic consistency), we’ll call them B and C.
B is an NGO worker who has been on the frontlines of the protests in Tbilisi. His brother, C, is a lawyer and public servant who—alongside protesting—is forming unions and working to uphold Georgia’s constitutional laws.
Both B and C are exhausted, worried, fearful… and full of determination and defiance. Which is particularly understandable, given the firsthand impacts Russian imperialism has had on their lives.
I’ve braided their two deeply intertwined stories into the following as-told-by narrative, which will continue in Part III of this special installment of The Cure.
B & C: As Told By
B: My region was inhabited by South Ossetians, not Russians. The Ossetians are a small minority group that is ethnically different from Georgians. They weren’t the majority, but they still lived in the region. This started in the 1990s, but in 2008, the South Ossetians decided to leave Georgia and form an independent country.
C: I was 14 years old in 2008. That was the hardest period for me, for my family, for my brother too. We lost everything. But nothing was more painful than losing our childhood—I feel like I became an adult at 14. We lost our neighbors. They were killed by Russians and South Ossetians. We lost everything. We had no clothes, no belongings. We had to start from zero. My parents tried not to show it, but they were in deep stress—I could feel it.
B: My father was in the military, fighting in the war. My mother and I were home when the planes came to bomb our town. We had to escape, but we couldn’t contact my father or other family members. We didn’t know if they were alive. Eventually, we managed to flee, but our house was burned down, and many of our neighbors and relatives were killed.
C: We lost many friends. All of the children we spent time with until 2008 were settled in different parts of Georgia, and we couldn’t see them often. We were all bullied in the areas that we were settled in. Our peers looked at us, and we were different from them. And at that age, if people put a label on you, it is very stressful.
B: Russia claimed they came to Georgia to support the South Ossetians—to protect them from Georgian violence. But everyone knew the real reason: Russia’s own ambitions, not the Ossetian cause.
C: Since I was a kid, we were taught in school that Russia was our enemy. Most Georgians believe this—that Russia was, is, and always will be our enemy. But there are people who--and also, the government promotes this idea--even though they don’t say that ‘Russia is our friend,’ do everything that Russia says.
B: Most Georgians don’t want to go back to the USSR. That’s why we want to join the EU—we’ve seen how harmful it is to be tied to Russia. The EU means the rule of law, human rights protections, and a better future. But our government is influenced by Russia. They despise everything that comes from the US and the EU.
C: These are people who don’t realize that day by day, we are becoming closer to Russia. When I talk to people, I tell them that the only way to survive is EU membership. Otherwise, we will become Russia.…but many do not understand. They think some political party created this disinformation. They don’t understand that we’re following the same path that, for example, Belarus followed many years ago.
B: In Georgia, we have a very influential church: the Patriarchate. And our church supports the Georgian Dream Party. They have not declared that officially, but every statement from priests and preachers aligns with Georgian Dream. Over the last decade, government media has pushed the narrative that the EU and US promote LGBT values—and that if we become EU members, our children will be “threatened” by exposure to LGBT culture or even “become” LGBT. This rhetoric comes from the priests and people at the root of this religion.
C: Russian propaganda really works, even among my friends—especially those who regularly go to church. We used to share the same ideas and opinions, but that totally changed. They started saying things like, “OK, if we go to the EU, we have to really be Georgians.”
B: It doesn’t matter how Russia fights you. Sometimes, they use weapons. Other times, propaganda. Right now, Georgia is at war with Russia. In Ukraine, they use missiles. In Georgia, they use lies.
In Part III of Crisis in the Caucasus, we’ll continue B and C’s story and explore their harrowing first-hand accounts of the tenacity, defiance, hopes, and fears of the protestors fighting for the future of Georgia.
