As Ukraine and Georgia continue to spar over the presence of Georgian opposition figures in Ukraine’s government, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has exacerbated the bitter rivalry between once strategic partners, sanctioning several relatives of Georgia’s informal leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili.
On October 19, Zelensky imposed personal sanctions on several members of Ivanishvili’s family and three other businessmen without offering any justification in the decree he signed.
That, along with the accusations over a contentious vote at the Council of Europe, which linked the Georgian opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili’s support with the condemnation of Russia’s war in Ukraine, pushed the relationship between the two countries to a nadir.
Georgia’s government, which insists that the real reason behind the sanctions is its failure to act more forcefully against Russia, was outraged by Zelensky’s move with the chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Irakli Kobakhidze, accusing Kyiv of trying to blackmail them into opening the second front.
His accusation stems from repeated calls from various Ukrainian officials on Tbilisi to target Russian troops in the Georgian breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which would amount to opening a second front in the war.
While domestic politics are driving a thick wedge between Kyiv and Tbilisi, that ‘second front’ narrative has lately become a catch-all conspiracy theory for any and all political woes faced by Georgia and the Georgian Dream.
Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition Droa party, Elene Khoshtaria, expressed gratitude to Kyiv for sanctioning supporters of Russia’s war and orchestrators of state capture, openly taking credit for advocating for the measure.
Georgian opposition has long branded Ivanishvili as a pro-Russian oligarch so the main opposition force, the former ruling party United National Movement (UNM), called on Kyiv to include Ivanishvili himself in the next sanctions package.
