MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia on Thursday lifted visa restrictions on Georgia, granting its citizens the right to work in Russia two weeks ahead of a parliamentary election in which a government increasingly at odds with the West is seeking a fourth term in office.
The move followed a comment from the European Union’s ambassador to Georgia last month that the bloc would consider suspending its visa-free regime with Georgia, in place since 2017, if the vote was not free and fair.
The decree published on the Kremlin website scrapped a rule limiting Georgians’ visa-free visits to Russia to 90 days and removed restrictions that prevented them from working or studying in Russia without a visa.
Russia last year ended a long-standing requirement for all Georgians seeking to visit Russia to obtain visas in what was seen as a part of a rapprochement between Moscow and traditionally pro-Western Tbilisi.
The two countries still have no formal diplomatic relations after a short war between them in 2008 and Russia’s subsequent recognition of two breakaway Georgian regions as independent statelets.
The ruling Georgian Dream party has struck increasingly anti-Western notes ahead of the Oct. 26 election, accusing Western countries of seeking to drag Georgia into a conflict with Russia.
The EU granted Georgia candidate status in December, but has since said it has frozen the membership process after Georgian Dream passed a law on “foreign agents” which critics said was authoritarian and Russian-inspired.
Opinion polls show that Georgian Dream remains the single largest party, but it has lost ground since 2020, when it won a narrow parliamentary majority.
Russian officials have repeatedly signalled that they want Georgian Dream to remain in power.
Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, said last week that Moscow wanted to see “healthy, nationally-oriented forces” retain power in Georgia, and accused the U.S. of interfering in the election.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Felix Light in Tbilisi; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Philippa Fletcher)
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