Publication

This issue of the Digest examines the state of Russian-Georgian relations four years after the August 2008 war. Fyodor Lukyanov argues that for Russia the purpose of the war was to blunt NATO expansion and restore its own status as a great power. Four years later, however, Moscow is now concerned with building a new future-oriented identity rather than one rooted in its past. Tornike Sharashenidze, in turn, argues that Russia not only remains concerned over the threat of NATO enlargement, but also with Georgia providing an alternative and more attractive model of development within the post-Soviet space. The Georgian authorities, for their part, believe that the country benefits from a rupture with Russia and its Soviet past, at least in the near-term. In the long-term, however, Tbilisi would like to see a modernized and democratic Russia as a neighbor.