Russia ends visa regime for Georgia, lifts flight ban
Ban was imposed in 2019 after a wave of anti-Kremlin protests in Tbilisi;
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday abolished visas for Georgian nationals and lifted a 2019 ban on direct flights to the South Caucasus nation, a move that comes amid rocky relations between the two countries and that was quickly denounced by Georgia’s president as a “provocation.”
According to a decree Putin signed, starting from May 15, Georgian nationals will be allowed to enter Russia without visas -- unless they’re coming to Russia to work or to stay for longer than 90 days.
Another presidential decree lifts a ban on direct flights by Russian airlines to Georgia. Russia unilaterally imposed the ban in 2019 after a wave of anti-Kremlin protests in Georgia.
The decrees come a day after leaders of several Central Asian and South Caucasus nations stood beside Putin at a military parade marking the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War II, in what looked like the Kremlin seeking to show that Russia still had allies and was not completely isolated.
Following Putin’s decrees, Russia’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement lifting its 2019 recommendation for Russian citizens to avoid travelling to Georgia. Putin’s decrees, the statement said, “are in line with our principled approach of consistently facilitating the conditions for communication and contacts between the citizens of Russia and Georgia, despite the absence of diplomatic relations.”
Russia-Georgia relations have been complicated since the Soviet Union’s collapse in the early 1990s. The two countries fought a short war in 2008 that ended with Georgia losing control of two Russia-friendly separatist regions.
In the aftermath, Tbilisi severed diplomatic ties with Moscow, and the issue of the regions’ status remains a key irritant.