In what way does Russia use soft power in Georgia after 2008?
Abstract
The paper encompasses on use of Russian soft power in Georgia after 2008-war between two countries. Soft power is defined as using attraction, rather than coercion to achieve a goal. It is a big part of Russian foreign policy, and there are three ways Russia uses soft power in Georgia: Passportization, Propaganda, and Influencing Georgian Orthodox Church. Passportization is offering citizenship/passports to the citizens of other countries. In this case Russia offers citizenship to the population of separatist regions in Georgia, this is beneficial for Russia as newly defined citizens grant Russia Responsibility to Protect, a concept approved by UN. Propaganda is a big part of Russian soft power. Generally, it spreads anti-Western, pro-Russian ideas through all types of media. There are several news platforms in Georgia, financed directly from Kremlin, that spread fake-news, and Russian propaganda. Third tool is influencing Georgian Orthodox Church. The influence of Russia is significant on Georgian Orthodox church, as churches are only relation between two countries after 2008-war. Results of propaganda are not significant, but connections between anti-Western attitudes of a part of Georgian population and what propaganda works on can be seen, as well as the direct influence of Russian Orthodox Church on decision-making of Georgian Orthodox Church about Ukraine’s autocephaly.
Tools & consequences
Passportization
This paper found three main ways, Russia uses in influencing Georgia through soft power. As Souleimanov, Abrahamyan and Aliyev state, passportization “The issuance of Russian passports to residents of the unrecognized states who want them” (Souleimanov, Abrahamyan, & Aliyev, 2018, p. 80) is one of the tools Russia uses to influence Georgian separatist states by referencing concluded consequences of Artman, Gerrits, and Bader, who state that “Passportization in a breakaway region by a third country dramatically violates the traditional state’s territorial sovereignty. Georgia is a case in point “. (Souleimanov, Abrahamyan, & Aliyev, 2018, p. 80)
Andrey Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk (2018) state that “Concept of biopolitics can be viewed as a pivotal element of Russian soft power” and as Souleimanov, Abrahamyan and Aliyev, Makarychev and Yatsyk also refer to passportization as a powerful tool in biopolitics stating: “Russia integrates their populations through bestowing Russian citizenship to their residents, being in the meantime reluctant to fully incorporate them territorially.” (Makarychev & Yatsyk, 2018, p. 21)
Souleimanov, Abrahamyan and Aliyev also present us the consequences of Russia’s use of passportization in separatist regions of Georgia such as in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Thanks to passportization, Russia is granted the legal right for installing the military in separatist regions, by using the concept of Responsibility to Protect, a global political commitment endorsed by all member states of the United Nations. So, Russia has a legal right to protect their citizens, defined through the use of passportization, on the land of Georgia. For better illustration, Souleimanov, Abrahamyan and Aliyev cite Allison: “Moscow’s commitment to ‘protect Russia’s citizens’, wherever they might live, was a core justification for the intervention in Georgia, which has been referred to as ‘Russia’s 9/11 “ (Souleimanov, Abrahamyan, & Aliyev, 2018, p. 82)
Propaganda
As Surowiec argues propaganda is a large part of Russia’s soft power all over the world, and “Global audiences have been learning more about the dark side of Russian influence in international politics.” (Surowiec, 2017, p. 21) Georgia is not an exception. With the development of technology, Russia started using blogs, bots, trolls, and web-news platforms for spreading “fake news” to influence the population of Georgia through soft power. As Iatco and Putina state Russia engages in informational and ideological confrontation for its target audience, emphasizes the importance of Russian culture and language, and interprets historical events in its own ‘Russian way’. “The Russian media address political issues in conciliation with culture, history, education, language, the latter being the basic directions the Russian Federation focuses on the space of ex-Soviet countries.” (Iatco & Putina, 2017, p. 86) Pomerantsev comes in agreement with Iatco and Putina’s argument about interpreting historical events in its own way by quoting Alexey Nikolov saying: “There’s always a Russian way to look at a situation.” (Pomerantsev, 2014, p. 20)
As Russia’s target audience is post-soviet space, Georgia, in this case, has chosen the pro-western course as an independent nation, Russia needs to use propaganda as a means of maintaining influence in the area in order not to lose it completely. Thus, as Surowiec states, Russian propaganda focuses on spreading anti-western, pro-Russian values and sabotages pro-western, anti-Russian ideas. (Surowiec, 2017) Yurkova gives us examples of anti-western, Pro-Russian propaganda such as ‘The West is not a reliable partner and Georgiais in an illusion about its Western perspective’ , ‘USA fights against Georgian church and traditions’ ‘Georgiahas to stay with the RussianFederation because of its geography, common 200-year history and the Orthodox Christianity’. (Yurkova, 2016)
Pomerantsev deems Russia’s anti-western propaganda pointed at being an influencer in the region by saying that “Putin will continue to try to undermine the EU so as to create a continent under Russia’s energy thumb“ He also emphasizes consequences of the use of disinformation in the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. “Kremlin can quickly release a barrage of disinformation to a large audience: whether it’s claiming non-existent genocides as an excuse for Russia to invade Georgia in 2008 or alleging that Ukraine was being taken over by fascists as an excuse to annex Crimea.” (Pomerantsev, 2014, p. 20). Gerber and Zavisca also agreed with Pomerantsev, pointing out Russian, anti-Western propaganda, saying that Russia tries to show out the West as powerful but a malign force, present Russia as the only force that is superior and that can resist it. In addition “Russian social and political values are juxtaposed to those of the “West” and held to be superior, with the former linked to traditionalism, communalism, and stability, and the latter to “deviant” lifestyles selfish individualism and instability“ (Gerber & Zavisca, 2016, p. 82)
Russia uses a web platform as well as TV media to expose the Georgian target group to its propagandistic data. As the paper finds out from web sources by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, Russia Today and Sputnik are two main sources for spreading fake news and anti-western, pro-Russian propaganda, they often encourage homophobia, radicalism, and nationalism. Liberal Academy, which conducted research on dangers of Russia’s hard and soft power in Georgia, comes in agreement with Gerber and Zavisca saying “Russian narrative in neighboring countries is the exposure of their citizens to Russian news reports on television and on the Internet.” (Gerber & Zavisca, 2016, p. 93) by conducting that “Russian propaganda is actively disseminated in the Georgian printed, online, and TV spaces.” (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 2017) Based on BBC Worldwide Monitoring sources state that propaganda mainly focuses on promoting anti-Western and anti-American ideas. The sources are directly financed and receive instructions from Kremlin, thus spread fake news deemed harmful for Georgian interests, such as Russia Today accusing Georgians of ethnic cleansing of Ossetians during Russia-Georgia war in 2008, and saying that Georgia invaded Ossetia, while Russia was trying to establish peace and justice in this war. Russia Today also periodically invents myths about West to promote the pro-Russian agenda in the country, such as American Lugar Laboratory conducting illegal biological tests or promotes the idea that it is absurd for Georgia to join NATO. “The main objective of this kind of messages is to sow skepticism about Western values, polarize the population, deepen homophobic sentiments, and create the image of Russia as a just and powerful state.” (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 2019)
Although there is no direct evidence of change of ideology in Georgian citizens, connected to Russian propaganda, pundits and politicians deem it a serious issue. As the leader of the Free Democrats Party, Irakli Alasania: “I can see serious challenge in this sense because the Russiansecret services have started to invest large funds in the Georgian media. They are trying to find support for the idea that the European choice is wrong for Georgia.” (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 2015) However, pundit Irakli Menagharishvili doesn’t deem Russian propaganda in Georgia having disastrous effects “I get the impression that the Russian propagandamachine sufficiently penetrates into the Georgian media space. At any rate, the existing level does harm to our interests. However, its influence on society is by no means disastrous.” Argues Menagharishvili (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 2017) Pundit Korneli Kakachia also comes in agreement with Menagharishvili by saying that at a glance information about Russian pop-culture might look harmless, but linked with other things it comes out as propaganda, also he argues that conferences held in order to fight propaganda have little or no effect, as people that Russian propaganda is targeted at, do not assist these events. (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 2017)
Influencing Georgian Orthodox Church
Although Georgia is a secular country, the Georgian Orthodox Church is one of the most influential organizations. According to Metreveli “The GOC has been the most trusted public institution in the country for more than a decade “ and Patriarch Ilia II is highest-ranking public profile person with an approval rate of 91-96% according to NDI surveys. (Metreveli, 2016, p. 700)
Orthodox Christian Religion plays a big role in Kremlin narrative, spreading ideas that Russia is a big friendly brother to Georgia and that the two countries should stick together, because they historically have the same religion, Stopfake.org offers example ‘Georgia has to stay with the Russian Federation because of its geography, common 200-year history and the Orthodox Christianity’ (Yurkova, 2016) Makarychev and Yatsyk refer to so-called “pastoral power” while discussing soft power and biopolitics of Russia in Georgia. They point out that after the 2008 war the communication between the two countries started to rely on Orthodox Churches. “Accentuation of cultural and religious affinity with Georgia is for Moscow political instrument allowing emphasis on incompatibility of “traditional” Orthodox values with the EU’s liberal emancipatory agenda, which allegedly “calls for respecting sin” and “forgets about nations and patriotism.” (Makarychev & Yatsyk, 2018) We can observe sympathies of the above-mentioned patriarch Ilia II who called Putin “a wise ruler who will necessarily help reunite Georgia… Russia’s idea is about the protection of spirituality.” (Makarychev & Yatsyk, 2018, p. 13) While country very similar to Georgia, with also problematic relations with Russia, Ukraine seeks to gain autocephaly for Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Georgian Orthodox Church awaits for Russian response to it, proclaiming it directly on their web-page: “Until the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Patriarchate of Russia confirm their respective final official decisions, the Patriarchate of Georgia will forbear to give assessment of the situation.” (Patriarchate of Georgia, 2018) Makarychev and Yatsyk found an explanation for this, saying that the Georgian Orthodox church made a kind of barter exchange of interests with the Russian Orthodox Church: “The Russian patriarch Kirill stressed that both Abkhazia and South Ossetia continue to belong to the GOC jurisdiction. In response, the GOC refused to recognize the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which had proclaimed its independence from Moscow” (Makarychev & Yatsyk, 2018, p. 15) They also state that the pro-LGBT vs. anti-LGBT dichotomy of Russian pastoral power that is widespread, in this context is transformed into a pro-EU vs. pro-Russian dilemma. “Thus, some in Georgia think that Russia manipulates the widespread religious sentiments and the veneration of Orthodox values for the purpose of isolating Georgia from the West. “ (Makarychev & Yatsyk, 2018, p. 14)
Conclusions
Research, based on academic and journalistic articles pointed out that Russian soft power has become of higher importance during Vladimir Putin’s presidency. In Georgia especially, where it is enormous, as said in BBC worldwide monitoring article “Unlike other post-Soviet and East European countries, Russian propaganda in Georgiais all-inclusive”. (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 2019) Three main tools were revealed. First, passportization, used by the Russian Federation in separatist regions of Georgia in order to have Responsibility to Protect, presented by the United Nations, thus to have legal right to place the Russian military on Georgian land. Second, propaganda, the most prominent tool in Russian soft power, that is spread throughout the media, applying fake news, to promote anti-western and pro-Russian narrative. Also, Russian propagandistic media is directly financed by Kremlin and the information about financing is available, politicians and pundits still consider it as danger. Third, the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on the Georgian Orthodox Church. As it is known, the relation between the two countries was held nearly only through its orthodox churches after the 2008 war. It is possible to draw lines between the actions of two churches, and as the Georgian Orthodox church is most influential for Georgian citizens, it can also be considered as dangerous for the country’s interest. Direct consequences of propaganda and influencing of Georgian Orthodox Church were not found, but connections were drawn with propaganda through the results of polls, stating Russian factor as main reason for anti-Western attitude, and not recognizing Ukraine’s autocephaly, in the case of Russian influence on Georgian Orthodox Church.
Russo-Georgian war, 2008
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