Larsi’s border crossing on the Russian border seems premonition from the Georgian side. It consists of a few modern white huts hidden in a gorge at the base of a steep mountain in the Caucasus Mountains. The road past the bends turns left, then snakes north into Russia. For thousands of Russian men, potentially hundreds of thousands, this stark landscape represents freedom – the promise of avoiding possible carnage in Ukraine, where Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army is suffering horrendous casualties. But for many Georgians, the border is a threat. They believe the creeping Russification of their country, which has been partially occupied by Russia since the two countries went to war in 2008, starts here. Georgia is one of the last countries where Russians can enter visa-free, no questions asked. And they go inside. THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS Trucks, headed for the Russian border, return to Georgian territory near the Larsi crossing. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, about half a million have found their way to Georgia, most of them in two waves. The first came in February and March, shortly after the invasion began. the second in September and October, when Mr. Putin carried out a gang-style mobilization of some 300,000 men. The government in Tbilisi says about 115,000 Russians have remained in Georgia, a small country with a population of 3.7 million. When the mobilization began, thousands of cars filled with young Russian men eligible for the army blocked the Russian side of the border, where some grabbed military recruiting officers. Last week, when The Globe and Mail visited the area with a photographer and an interpreter, the crash was gone, but the Russians were still coming – about 30 cars were waiting to pass. The occupants of a Citroën sedan with Russian license plates were happily talking. Konstantin and his wife, Ksenia, had driven from Rostov-on-Don, about 650km east of Ukraine, and slipped into Georgia by telling Russian border guards they were on holiday. They planned to go as far as Armenia, where they have friends. (The Globe is not using their full names for fear of retaliation by Russian authorities.) “I was not eligible for the first mobilization as I was too old, but there may be a second mobilization before winter,” said Konstantin, 39. “They are picking men at random all over Russia.” Ksenia said that, back home, they were reminded every hour of the day that the war they oppose continues. “We hear the sounds above our houses of Russian military aircraft heading for Ukraine all the time,” he said. “I don’t want my husband to die in Ukraine.” Another member of this Russian diaspora was Anton, 35, a construction worker from Yaroslavl, a city about 230 kilometers north of Moscow. He made his tortuous journey by plane, train and bus to the Georgian border, carrying nothing but a backpack, and hitchhiked to a nearby mountain lodge called the White House to figure out where to head next. He too feared a second mobilization. “I have serious neck problems, but the Russian army does not care about my health,” he said. “I know many men who had medical problems but were still forced into the military. If Russia wins this war, it will have to keep fighting because Putin will not stop with Ukraine.” Women mourn at the funeral of a Georgian fighter killed in Ukraine. Like Georgia, Ukraine seceded from the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Ukrainian flags are flown at the Palace of Justice in Tbilisi and at a ceremony outside the national legislature. The influx of Russians and their families is reshaping Georgia, creating internal tensions in a small country whose leaders have an inconsistent policy toward Russia. Officially, Russia is an “enemy” state. However, the government, led by the social democratic Georgian Dream party, is sending mixed messages about its real stance towards Moscow. Some of the many critics of the Georgian government view the ruling party, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, and the power broker behind him, multi-billionaire former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, as closer to Russia than they care to admit (Ivanishvili was a Russian citizen for 20 years). “Georgia’s apparent neutrality is a euphemism that it is pro-Russian and our enemy is Russia,” said Giga Bokeria, former secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council and leader of the small opposition European Georgia party. “Russia has a strategic goal of destroying Georgia, yet our government appeases Putin.” One of the leaders of the Shame Movement, which calls itself Georgia’s largest protest group, is more blunt. “We believe Georgian Dream is a Russian proxy,” said Nadar Rukhadze, the group’s pro-European co-founder. “To try to be neutral is automatically to be with a country that has colonized and occupied us.” Nodar Rukhadze and Dachi Imedadze of the Shame Movement show an anti-Putin poster in their office. Georgia is a former Soviet republic – the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, no less – wedged between the Caspian and Black Seas at the crossroads of Asia and Europe. Located in a tough neighborhood, it shares borders with Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey. Georgia has always cherished its own identity and developed a strong sovereignty movement in the 1980s. In 1991, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, it declared independence. Its very existence as an autonomous state angered Mr Putin even before Georgia declared its ambition to join the EU and NATO. In a short, bloody war in 2008, Russia gained full control of two breakaway Georgian provinces – South Ossetia and Abkhazia – and filled them with Russian military personnel. It maintains a large military base just 60 kilometers northwest of Tbilisi that typically has 4,500 troops, a tank battalion and a drone company. It is an unsettling presence for many Georgians, although it is likely that most of the base’s troops and armor have been redeployed to Ukraine, where 23 Georgian volunteer fighters died, according to local media, which covered their funerals. After the 2008 war, Georgia strengthened its pro-Western strategy, to the point of adding its goal of joining the EU and NATO to the constitution and hosting NATO exercises. On paper, at least, Georgia maintains this pro-Western stance, although it seems to have diluted it in recent years. The government insists it supports Ukraine, but only sends it humanitarian supplies, not military equipment. Unlike most Western countries, it still welcomes Russian visitors, who do not need a visa and can essentially stay forever. Georgia has not imposed sanctions on Russia, and trade between the two countries – Russian oil comes south, Georgian food goes north – has grown since the war began. On our way to the Russian border in a truck, The Globe measured 22 kilometers of trucks parked alongside the winding highway. One frustrated driver, whose truck was loaded with Georgian-made lemonade, said it could take days, even weeks, to enter Russia because the line is so long and border controls so tight. In another move seen by the Georgian opposition as an encroachment by Moscow, the government barred entry to some prominent critics of the Putin government. Among them was a member of the punk band Pussy Riot, Olga Borisova, who was critical of the war in Ukraine. In June, mass protests broke out in Tbilisi after parliament invited a Russian politician to speak at a parliamentary forum. Georgian MP Nikoloz Samharadze talks to The Globe about his party’s approaches to Russia and the West. The Globe asked Nikoloz Samkharadze, the chairman of parliament’s foreign relations committee, to explain the apparent strategy of trying to reconcile with both Russia — Georgia’s “enemy” and occupier of 20 percent of its land — and and with the West. Why are Russians allowed visa-free entry, especially since there have been reports of Russian agents exploiting open borders? (In August, Eurasianet published an article about a young Russian who was exposed and admitted his role as an informant in Tbilisi for Russia’s security services.) Mr Samkharadze said his committee and the party held a lively debate about keeping the border open. “We decided that if you close the border, you’re playing into Putin’s hands,” he said. “They would close the border to people who don’t want to fight in Ukraine.” Mr. Bokeria’s view is that the government is gambling that its soft stance toward Mr. Putin can persuade the Russian leader to leave Georgia alone. He believes the government fears a hard-line approach, which could include Georgia providing Ukraine with lethal weapons, would persuade Mr Putin to complete a takeover of the country, an invasion that would likely overwhelm Georgia’s small army inside days. But he says the government’s strategy offers no protection from Russia – that Mr Putin has no more faith in Georgian independence than in Ukrainian independence. “If we want the state, we have to show that we are ready to fight,” he said. “If Putin knows we’re not ready to fight, he’s more likely to invade.” He also thinks it is dangerous to keep the borders open….
