Mass refusals to admit Russian citizens to Georgia are not a new development: the practice had already become noticeable in September 2022, after mobilization was announced in Russia. According to the South Caucasus branch of the Free Russia Foundation, Georgian border officials were issuing several dozen entry refusals a day at that time.
At the same time, most Russians were still able to enter the country or return after short trips abroad. However, as Free Russia staff member Yegor Kuroptev said, the Georgian authorities had already tightened border checks and were turning people back without giving reasons.
“Neither profession, nor the fact of living in Georgia, nor having a housing rental contract matters. If there is no residence document or residence permit, then no other documents guarantee entry to Georgia for Russian citizens,” Kuroptev told Meduza.
For Russians fleeing war and repression, Tbilisi’s position looked contradictory. On the one hand, the city was covered with Ukrainian flags and anti-war slogans. On the other, the ruling party, Georgian Dream, as the text suggests, clearly did not want to appear in the Kremlin’s eyes as a patron of “foreign agents,” “undesirable” figures, or “extremists.”
Public prominence offered no protection and may even have worked against people. Journalist Mitya (Dmitry) Aleshkovsky, founder of the outlet Takie Dela and labeled a “foreign agent” in Russia, was unable to re-enter Georgia in September 2022 after a trip to Yerevan: border officials sent him back to Armenia without comment.
“Such a small detail as the fact that his wife and daughter are waiting for him in Tbilisi is, of course, not taken into account at all,” his mother, historian Tamara Eidelman, wrote on social media.
Over time, the article says, it also became clear to the broader public that the Georgian authorities were increasingly unwilling to see Russian activists and journalists who had left Russia in the country.