International Crisis Group
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Georgia | Caucasus
Detailed conflict history
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Recent reports and briefings

Georgia managed a peaceful, if dramatic, transfer of power in November 2003, ousting President Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister and Georgian leader since the early 1990s. The scale of western oriented Mikhail Saakashvili’s subsequent electoral victory in January 2004 was widely seen as a vote for change in the Caucasian republic. But Georgia’s governance problems – endemic corruption amongst them – will not be easily solved. The scope for conflict remains.

Saakashvili won early success May 2004, reaffirming Georgia’s control over the breakaway province of Ajara and sending strongman Aslan Abashidze into exile. But Ajara was always the least intractable of Georgia’s territorial conflicts. It is far less clear that the populations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are so willing to rejoin Georgia.

Russian sensitivities in the region are great. Georgia borders Ingushetia and Chechnya – fears the mountainous area around the Pankisi Gorge has harboured Chechen insurgents have frequently raised tensions between Georgia and its former overlord. As Russia’s problems deepen in Chechnya and as long as the risk of wider North Caucasus conflagration remains, Georgia will have to tread carefully. Crisis Group’s Georgia project focuses on ways Georgia can navigate its difficult course to stability in a geopolitically important region. 

Our Georgia reports are listed below, starting with the most recent. You can also search for relevant reports using the search box in the top right hand side of this page.

Articles, op-eds, speeches and media releases can be found under the media section.

Click here for a more detailed history of the country/conflict.


Recent reports & briefings