GEOPOLITICAL AND HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION’S POLICY TOWARD SELF-PROCLAIMED STATE ENTITIES IN GEORGIA

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to analyze the historical prerequisites and geopolitical background of Russia's policy towards provoking and pretending to settle the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian ethnopolitical conflicts in the territory of post-Soviet Georgia. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, systematicity, authorial objectivity, the use of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization) and special historical (historical-genetic, historical-typological, historical-systemic) methods. The scientific novelty lies in clarifying the historical prerequisites for the proclamation of the self-proclaimed Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgian autonomous entities within the USSR, whose "independence" was supported first by the Soviet and later by the Russian leadership. In this way, the Russian Federation sought to weaken independent Georgia, depriving it of the right to pursue an independent foreign policy. Also, on the example of Georgia, one can see how Russia occupies territories, creates a controlled government there and thus influences the internal politics of its neighbors. The Russian Federation's policy towards self-proclaimed state formations in Georgia is part of the Russian strategy of restoring the Soviet empire with its center in Moscow. To this end, the Russian Federation uses the usual tools for empires: provoking ethnopolitical conflicts, managing them by introducing "peacekeeping forces" into the confrontation zone, encouraging the population of the rebellious republics to obtain Russian citizenship, providing economic and financial support to separatist regimes, and conducting an external disinformation campaign regarding the Russian Federation's right to the so-called historical territories of the former USSR. All these means are aimed at legitimizing the Russian presence in post-Soviet countries, such as Georgia, and thus at making it impossible for official Tbilisi to ensure the implementation of the foreign policy course towards Georgia's European and Euro-Atlantic integration. This Russian policy currently makes it impossible for Georgia to leave the sphere of Russian imperial geopolitical influence.