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Direct flights resumed Friday between Russia and Georgia amid protests and sharp criticism from the South Caucasus country’s president, just over a week after the Kremlin unexpectedly lifted a four-year ban despite in a rocky relationship.
Georgian police on Friday afternoon dispersed protesters who had gathered at Tbilisi airport to meet an Azimuth Airlines flight from Moscow, the first to arrive from Russia since July 2019, with signs and slogans which criticized the Kremlin and what they described as the pro-professionalism of the Georgian government. Course in Russia.
Georgia’s pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, who has previously clashed with the government over improving ties with Moscow, also voiced her opposition in a tweet posted on Friday.
“Despite the opposition of the Georgian people, Russia landed its unwanted flight in Tbilisi. Not with Russian flights!,” said Zourabichvili.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday unexpectedly lifted visas for Georgian nationals and lifted a unilateral flight ban imposed by Moscow in 2019 following a wave of anti-Kremlin protests in Georgia.
Putin’s orders came a day after the leaders of several Central Asian and South Caucasus states stood by him at a military parade marking the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, in what the appearance of the Kremlin seeking to show that Russia has allies and does not. not completely isolated.
Following Putin’s orders, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement removing the 2019 recommendation for Russian citizens to avoid traveling to Georgia.
Russia-Georgia relations have been complicated since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The two countries fought a brief war in 2008 that ended with Georgia losing control to both Russia -friendly separatist regions.
Afterward, Tbilisi cut diplomatic ties with Moscow, and the issue of the status of the regions remains a source of irritation, although relations have improved somewhat.
After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Georgia joined international resolutions condemning the war, provided Kyiv with humanitarian aid and took in thousands of refugees. However, its authorities stopped supplying Ukraine with weapons, due to the need to maintain neutrality.
At the same time, the Black sea country of 3.7 million people has become one of the main destinations for Russians fleeing the crackdown and the partial mobilization of the military announced by Putin in September 2022.
Zourabichvili last week responded to Putin’s orders in a tweet calling them “another provocation by Russia.”
“Continuing direct flights and lifting the visa ban to Georgia is unacceptable as long as Russia continues its aggression in Ukraine and annexes our territory!,” he said.
Opposition lawmaker Giorgi Vashadze told reporters that Georgia’s pro-Western political party plans to hold a rally outside the parliament building on Friday night.
“The current authorities want to align with Russia, but the population is against it and is committed to the Euro-Atlantic course,” said Vashadze, referring to Tbilisi’s stalled European Union membership bid and decades of long aspiration to join NATO.
On the contrary, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili on Friday said in a media briefing that the restoration of direct flights from Russia is the right thing to do. Garibashvili emphasized that Tbilisi would not allow flights of Russian airlines permitted by the West, but said that stopping business and economic relations with Moscow would “harm the interests of the Georgian people.”
The Georgian aviation authority this week allowed two smaller Russian airlines, Azimuth Airlines and Red Wings, to launch flights to Tbilisi and Georgia’s second city Kutaisi.
Vazha Siradze, an official at Georgia’s interior ministry, said in a statement on Friday that six people were detained during a demonstration at Tbilisi airport after allegedly throwing eggs and shouting insults at police.
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