In a Failure for President Biden, Among Others, Russia Rebuilds Its Empire, One Country at a Time

In Georgia and Moldova, countries where opinion polls routinely register pro-European majorities, large numbers of voters are being frightened into voting for pro-Russian candidates.

AP/Zurab Tsertsvadze
A demonstrator holding EU and Georgian national flags at Tbilisi, October 28, 2024. AP/Zurab Tsertsvadze

After sowing war in Ukraine over the last two years, the Kremlin now harvests a bonus crop in the neighborhood. In Georgia and Moldova, countries where opinion polls routinely register pro-European majorities, large numbers of voters are being frightened into voting for pro-Russian candidates. Of the 15 former republics of the Soviet Union, only the three Baltics are members of the European Union. Moscow wants to keep it that way.

On Saturday, it was Georgia, long one of the most pro-Western former Soviet republics. Confounding pre-election polls, the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party trounced a pro-Western coalition 54 percent to 38 percent. “We choose peace, not war,” Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili told a pre-election rally in Tbilisi. Nearby, billboards contrasted photos of peaceful Georgian cities with devastated Ukrainian ones. 

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