*To read Part One, please click here.   While Mikheil Saakashvili served as governor of Ukraine’s Odesa Province (May 2015–November 2016), the region presented the former Georgian president with hurdles not only to system reforms but even to rational management as such. Those obstacles included:... MORE

Georgia’s former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has accepted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer to chair the Executive Committee of Ukraine’s National Council for Reforms (Ukrinform, May 7). Taking up the new challenge, Saakashvili promised to draw on the experience of his universally recognized achievements in Georgia... MORE

Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called on the Russian government to “refrain from provocative statements” and “disinformation” against the Center for Public Health Research, located near Tbilisi and named after the late United States Senator Richard Lugar (Kavkazsky Uzel, April 19). A couple weeks... MORE

Following the large coronavirus outbreak in Iran, neighboring countries quickly closed their borders with the Islamic Republic. More than a thousand Turkish trucks carrying goods to Central Asia found themselves stuck at checkpoints due to the closure of the Iran-Turkey and Iran-Turkmenistan borders (Daily Sabah,... MORE

On April 15, Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia briefed journalists that the government had agreed with international donors to allocate $3 billion to stabilize the economy, assist individuals affected by the developing economic crisis, and stimulate business in the post-crisis period (Interpressnews.ge, April 15). Georgia’s... MORE

On April 19, Georgians celebrated Orthodox Easter. But this year, the date highlighted a confrontation between the national authorities and the governing institution of the Orthodox Church of Georgia (the Patriarchate). As worshippers flocked to attend Easter vigils, virologists expressed concern that the holiday might... MORE

On March 30, the European Union announced it would provide substantial support to the six Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine—to mitigate the health and socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic (Ec.europa.eu, March 30). About a week later, additional details of... MORE

The agreement on Georgia’s electoral reform, signed between the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party and the united opposition at the US Embassy in Tbilisi on March 8 (Ge.usembassy.gov, accessed April 13), appeared to bring some level political peace back to the country. According to the... MORE

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, discussions of trade routes in the Caucasus have mostly been premised on the conviction that the north-south route and the east-west route, backed by Moscow and the West, respectively, are competitors. Every positive development in one is treated... MORE

Since the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991, a perpetual high priority for the Russian Federation has been to maintain or extend Moscow’s influence over the other former Soviet republics as far as possible, particularly in the military sphere. This... MORE