Alert: NATO candidate is about to change his position – he may move to Russia

In 2022, it applied for EU membership, and last year it was granted candidate status.

Since the 1990s, the country has also cooperated with NATO, and since 2005 has aspired to join it as a full member – a move that has received significant popular support in the country.

This warning concerns Georgia – which now fears it will turn its back on the West forever when it holds elections in October.

“We were already part of the Soviet Union, and we know what that means,” pro-Western opposition politician Giorgi Vashadze told Newsweek. “We call these elections Georgia’s geopolitical elections.”

“About the whole area”

Vladimir Putin is on the rise in the Eastern European country, which is described as being of strategic importance to both the United States and Russia.

Most recently, the Georgian government approved a Russian-style “foreign influence” law that Western nations and critics say threatens to crack down on media and political opponents. It was also the law that put restrictions on EU accession.

After the 2008 invasion, Russia also still has forces in the separatist regions that make up nearly a fifth of the country's entire area.

Western countries are losing the strategic competition, Korneli Kakachia, president of the Georgian Institute of Politics, told the American newspaper.

– You have China, Turkey, Iran in the region, plus Russia. It's not just about Georgia, it's about the region.

“A major setback for NATO”

Political analysts say that if Georgia formally sides with Russia, it could have dire consequences.

Laura Linderman of the Atlantic Council's Eurasia thinks it would be a victory for Putin and “embarrassing” for NATO.

“Losing Georgia to the Russian periphery would be a major setback for the United States, NATO, and the West, with geopolitical implications of strategic and symbolic importance,” she told Newsweek.

Photo: Office of the President of Russia

Text: Editors