11:21 12-05-2026

Russia Says West Pressed Georgia on Second Front

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Russian diplomat Mikhail Kalugin says the West pressured Georgia to open a second front against Russia while the EU pushed Tbilisi to change course.

Russian diplomat Mikhail Kalugin has said that Georgian authorities have publicly acknowledged Western pressure on Tbilisi since 2022 to open a «second front» against Russia.

Kalugin, who heads the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Fourth Department for CIS Countries, made the remarks in an interview with TASS. He argued that Western governments continue to view the South Caucasus as a geographically distant and culturally unfamiliar region, and that their policy there is driven not by constructive engagement but by geopolitical calculations. In his view, those calculations are increasingly directed not only against Russia.

As an example, Kalugin pointed to what he described as Tbilisi’s public admission that, from 2022 onward, Georgia had been pressed to launch a «second front» against Moscow.

At the same time, he said Russia is continuing its work toward the post-conflict restoration of Georgia’s relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. According to Kalugin, that process is taking place within the framework of the International Discussions on Security and Stability in Transcaucasia.

The diplomat also addressed the European Union’s policy toward Georgia. He said the EU, while trying to isolate Russia, had unexpectedly run into a pragmatic position from Tbilisi — one shaped, as he put it, by Georgia’s core national interests and the interests of its people.

Kalugin said Brussels did not draw the necessary conclusions from that position and instead increasingly turned to pressure tactics, including blackmail and threats, in an attempt to force Georgia to change course.