The Georgian Dream crew spent years auditioning to become Moscow’s favorite vassal, and the payoff was exactly what any sober observer predicted: a swift kick in the teeth.
Empty Words From Tbilisi
Koba Kobakhidze’s latest claim that Tbilisi will not restore diplomatic ties with Russia until Moscow reverses its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia carries zero weight. He has spent the last decade proving the exact opposite. These statements have become yearly background noise from Georgian Dream. All the while the party passed foreign agent laws, crushed protests, and openly flirted with turning the country into a confederation Moscow could quietly dominate.
What matters is the timing. Right after Britain, Germany, France, and Italy publicly warned of the growing risk of outright annexation of South Ossetia, the Kremlin sped up its legal absorption plan.
The Kremlin’s Legal Absorption Plan
In May 2026, Putin and Gagloev, then the so-called president of South Ossetia, signed a treaty on deepened allied integration. Gagloev called it the start of Ossetian reunification without naming with whom. By June he spoke openly of decisive steps toward union with Russia. Then he conveniently resigned, became Putin’s advisor, and handed power to Marat Kambolov.
Kambolov is a pure Russian bureaucrat born in the Russian Federation, a former director of the Kurchatov Institute, and hand-picked by Putin himself. This concerns something bigger than local politics: a deliberate swap from a loyal local KGB veteran to a Moscow-appointed technocrat whose job is to lay the legal groundwork for formal annexation.
The Broken Bargain
The pattern is obvious. Before the 2024 parliamentary elections, rumors spread that oligarch Ivanishvili had struck a deal. Drop the EU path, pass the agent law, accept confederation language, and perhaps the occupied territories would return in some face-saving formula. Leaks of Kremlin talks with his circle made the rounds. Kobakhidze suddenly began promising the peaceful return of the territories by 2030. The bargaining felt real but the smoke hung thick.
Once the elections were over and the protests crushed, Moscow dropped the act and pushed harder for de jure annexation. South Ossetia had always been a financial drain on the Russian budget. Now it looks like a ready-made distraction button. If the Donbas offensive collapses, Putin can present this formal swallow as red meat to his domestic patriots and shift the news cycle away from mounting casualties and economic pain.
Imperial projects like Russia do not reward appeasement. They exploit it until the client state has nothing left to trade.
A Desperate Scramble for Credibility
This is typical Kremlin hybrid management. Create frozen conflicts and bleed the victim state for years, then offer up those same conflicts as theatrical gifts when domestic pressure mounts. Georgia under Georgian Dream thought it could thread the needle, one foot in the EU talking shop and the other planted firmly under Moscow’s table. Now the table is being yanked away.
Kobakhidze’s sudden May overtures about restoring relations with Ukraine and starting intergovernmental dialogue are exactly what they look like: a desperate scramble to regain some credibility with Brussels after the EU froze Georgia’s integration. His foreign policy reflects a man who has run out of reliable patrons and is learning that Moscow offers no sentimental favors. The balancing act now runs through three failed gambits:
- Balance Russia with China
- Balance China with the EU
- Balance the EU with performative outreach to Ukraine
The Lesson for Everyone Watching
The lesson is clear. Georgia’s elite thought they could manage the bear. The bear just reminded them who holds the leash. Every year of half-measures and pro-Russian drift has left Tbilisi weaker, more isolated, and now facing the real prospect of another formal annexation on its border while its own government scrambles for European optics through Kyiv.
Ukraine has no illusions about this dynamic. We have lived it in blood since 2014. Moscow respects only decisive strength and clear red lines. Anything less gets you carved up, slowly at first, then all at once. Georgian Dream’s pathetic balancing act is ending exactly where realist analysis always said it would: used, discarded, and left explaining why its Moscow friends turned out to be anything but. The sarcasm practically writes the headline. Well, Koba, did your Muscovites help you after all?