0:01 as the devastating war in Ukraine
0:03 continues grinding on without a clear
0:05 end in sight tensions are rapidly rising
0:07 in another nation that borders Russia
0:08 who the Kremlin has previously invaded
0:11 twice in only the past three decades
0:13 Georgia in May of 2024 hundreds of
0:15 thousands of Jordan citizens took to the
0:17 streets in their nation's capital TI
0:19 bissi to protest against their
0:20 government's passing of a new and highly
0:22 controversial law in the country the
0:24 ruling party that governs in Georgia the
0:26 Georgian Dream party officially refers
0:28 to this new laws the transparency of
0:30 foreign influence Bill once an in a law
0:32 the bill will require that all Nos and
0:34 media companies operating in Georgia who
0:36 receive more than 20% of their funding
0:38 from abroad to register themselves as
0:40 pursuing the interests of a foreign
0:42 power in a public registry the Georgian
0:44 Dream party argues that this bill is
0:46 necessary to provide transparency on
0:48 where Nos and media companies in Georgia
0:50 are receiving their funding from but
0:51 critics and opponents of the bill argue
0:53 that it's almost identical to a similar
0:55 law that was passed by Vladimir Putin's
0:58 government in Russia back in 2012 which
0:59 has enabled the Russian government ever
1:02 since to suppress crack down on and shut
1:04 down opposition media outlets and NOS in
1:06 the country a pattern that could be
1:08 replicated by The georan Dream party to
1:10 suppressed the opposition in Georgia too
1:12 for this reason opponents of the foreign
1:13 influence Bill have labeled it as the
1:15 Russian law but it's not the only reason
1:17 why they've been calling it that because
1:19 the Bill's passing likely also carries
1:21 with it tremendous geopolitical benefits
1:24 for the Kremlin too because it'll
1:25 probably prevent Georgia from becoming
1:27 accepted into the European Union and
1:30 NATO as well both EU EU and NATO have
1:32 repeatedly stressed the Georgia's
1:33 passing of the new foreign influence
1:35 bill will make them incompatible with
1:37 their values and that it will jeopardize
1:39 Georgia's membership prospects as a
1:41 result for decades most Georgians have
1:43 long aspired to become a member of both
1:45 blocks of nations with current polling
1:47 showing that almost 80% of the Georgian
1:49 population desires their country to join
1:51 the European Union and another poll
1:53 showing that roughly 87% of Georgians
1:55 see the ongoing war in Ukraine as a
1:58 shared cause having themselves been
1:59 invaded by Russia twice in the past
2:02 three decades that resulted in 20% of
2:03 their own internationally recognized
2:05 territory falling under Russian military
2:08 occupation it was only a few months ago
2:10 in December of 2023 when Georgia was
2:12 finally offered its long awaited and
2:14 much coveted candidacy status by the
2:17 European Union which if one day approved
2:19 into a fully fledged member state would
2:21 establish a disconnected chunk of the
2:23 European Union across the Black Sea over
2:25 in Western Asia wedged in between Russia
2:27 and Turkey which would also make Georgia
2:29 the fifth EU member state to share a
2:31 direct border with Russia after Poland
2:34 Lithuania Lavia Estonia and Finland but
2:36 it was only 4 months after Georgia
2:38 received its EU candidacy status that
2:40 the ruling Georgia dream party decided
2:42 to reintroduce their controversial
2:45 foreign influence law again you see the
2:46 party had originally introduced the bill
2:49 back in February of 2023 but after
2:51 Fierce protests erupted in the capital
2:53 city against it the bill was quickly
2:55 withdrawn this time with the bill back
2:56 in 2024 however the Georgian
2:58 government's response to the protesters
3:00 has been significantly more heavy-handed
3:02 than they ever were before involving
3:04 water cannons tear gas and even rubber
3:06 bullets as the georan dream party has
3:08 made it explicitly clear that they are
3:10 determined to pass the new law through
3:13 regardless of how unpopular it might be
3:14 and regardless of how much it
3:16 jeopardizes their ability to actually
3:18 join the EU and NATO there is therefore
3:20 a major concern growing that the
3:22 Georgian government is actively drifting
3:24 the country back into the orbit of
3:26 Russia again a concern that hasn't been
3:27 helped by many other of the government's
3:29 actions recently such as their arrest an
3:31 imprisonment of the former pro- Western
3:33 Georgian president and Ukrainian Citizen
3:37 M sakashi since 2021 the refusal to
3:39 participate in any sanctions on Russia
3:40 since the invasion of Ukraine the
3:42 resumption of direct air travel with
3:45 Russia since 2023 and their dramatically
3:46 increased trade volume with Russia since
3:48 the invasion of Ukraine started with
3:50 Georgian exports to Russia Rising by
3:54 nearly 7% in 2022 and Georgian imports
3:57 from Russia skyrocketing by 79% over the
4:00 same time period this has led the
4:01 Ukrainian government to frequently
4:03 criticize the Georgian government of
4:04 assisting the Russians in evading
4:06 sanctions and tensions between them have
4:08 gotten so high recently that Kiev
4:10 recalled their ambassador to tibilisi in
4:13 June of 2022 and then shortly after
4:15 Georgia resumed the direct flights with
4:18 Russia in 20123 Kiev even expelled the
4:19 Georgian ambassador from their country
4:21 and announced sanctions on Georgian
4:23 Airways as a consequence and then later
4:26 in September of 2023 the speaker of the
4:28 Georgian Parliament even asserted that
4:30 Ukraine was plotting a coup inor Georgia
4:31 to overthrow the Georgian Dream party
4:33 and push the country into the war with
4:35 Russia since then the Georgian
4:37 government has repeatedly accused both
4:39 the United States and Ukraine of
4:41 attempting to push Georgia into joining
4:43 the war against Russia to reclaim their
4:45 occupied territories and to open up a
4:46 second front for the Kremlin to have to
4:48 deal with and they've even gone so far
4:50 as to openly accuse the US of plotting a
4:52 coup in the country and fermenting the
4:54 current high levels of unrest going on
4:56 against them and all of this is
4:58 increasingly coming to the Delight of
5:00 Russia who is openly praise the ruling
5:02 Georgian Dream party and its new foreign
5:04 influence Bill while they still occupy
5:06 20% of Georgia's internationally
5:09 recognized territory Russia has also
5:10 long maintained its own policy of
5:13 keeping Georgia out of the EU and NATO
5:15 as much as possible just like they've
5:17 done in Ukraine because like Ukraine
5:19 Georgia occupies an extremely important
5:22 piece on the board of global geopolitics
5:24 especially from the perspective of
5:27 Moscow it is a space that both the west
5:28 and Russia want to control and keep
5:30 within their own respective camps for a
5:32 plethora of important reasons and in
5:35 order to understand why it helps to
5:36 begin with sheer
5:39 geography Georgia is often considered to
5:41 be a transcontinental country because it
5:43 exists at the hardto Define Crossroads
5:45 between Eastern Europe and Western Asia
5:47 the country's claim territory strandes
5:48 most of the greater Caucasus mountain
5:50 range historically a valuable Geographic
5:53 Frontier region separating the vast flat
5:55 Eurasian step in southern Russia from
5:56 the great Empires that emerged in
5:58 Western Asia like the Turks and the
6:00 Persians the region of the Caucasus has
6:02 long been a Battleground area for
6:04 influence in the center between all
6:05 three of these greater neighboring
6:07 Empires around it and so for centuries
6:09 the Russians have maintained a strong
6:11 policy of controlling at least the
6:13 greater Caucasus Mountains in order to
6:14 control all of the access points from
6:17 Western Asia into Southern Russia where
6:18 it's basically just flat easily
6:20 traversable land all the way from there
6:23 to Ukraine and vulgarr which if captured
6:25 would isolate Russia from the black and
6:27 Caspian Seas geographically speaking
6:29 there are really only four viable over
6:31 Land Transportation routes to take to
6:32 travel through or around the greater
6:34 Caucasus Mountains today there are the
6:36 two narrow Coastal approaches to the
6:37 west and the east of the mountains
6:39 between the Black Sea and the Caspian
6:41 Sea while the only two routs in between
6:43 the run through or over the mountains
6:44 are the Georgian Military Road here that
6:46 follows the traditional Mountain Pass
6:48 route used by Invaders and Merchants for
6:50 centuries and the nearby Roki tunnel a
6:52 tunnel pass going through the mountains
6:54 that was only built during the Soviet
6:56 era and completed in 1984 if all four of
6:58 these routes can be effectively
6:59 controlled by Russia then they can
7:01 essentially control all landbased travel
7:04 between Western Asia and Russia and so
7:05 they can block any hostile land Army
7:07 from advancing from this direction into
7:09 the exposed step of Southern Russia that
7:11 is significantly more challenging to
7:13 defend historically this was Russia's
7:15 primary concern with controlling the
7:17 area around the greater Caucasus
7:20 Mountains which included Georgia Georgia
7:21 was steadily annexed by the Russians in
7:23 the early 19th century in a peac meal
7:25 fashion and then remained within the
7:26 Russian Empire until the country
7:28 collapsed during the first world war in
7:31 1917 Georgia then managed to briefly
7:32 emerge as an independent republic before
7:34 it was swallowed back up again by the
7:37 Red Army in 1921 and incorporated into
7:39 the new Soviet Union Georgia was then as
7:41 it still is today an ethnically and
7:43 linguistically diverse place because of
7:45 its mountainous geography the Georgians
7:47 were by far the largest single group and
7:48 always made up a majority but there were
7:51 large minorities of azanis Armenians
7:53 Russians Greeks and two important lesser
7:56 known groups known as the oans and the
7:59 aasian the oans are disconnected Iranian
8:00 ethnic group more closely related to
8:02 Kurds and Persians than any of their
8:03 neighbors who straddled the border
8:05 between Russia and Georgia while the
8:07 abkhazians are a small Caucasian ethnic
8:09 group most closely related to the
8:11 circassians to the north and Russia
8:13 after the Soviet Union came to control
8:15 the region they established the Georgian
8:17 Soviet Republic as a full Union Republic
8:19 of the country but within this Republic
8:21 they also created the South oian
8:23 autonomous ablast and the obaz
8:25 autonomous Republic as well which each
8:27 maintained a high degree of autonomy
8:29 separate from the rest of Georgia this
8:31 is how things largely remained within
8:33 Georgia for decades until the Soviet
8:35 Union began collapsing in 1989 and
8:38 Georgian oian and oba's nationalism All
8:40 Began increasing in the ensuing power
8:42 vacuum at the time the majority of obas
8:44 and oans wished to remain within the
8:46 Soviet Union in order to remain closer
8:49 to their oian and ccasian kin in Russia
8:51 while the Georgians generally desired
8:53 outright Independence Moscow began
8:55 strategically supporting the South oan
8:56 and oba's Nationalist and separatist
8:58 movements in order to apply leverage
9:00 against the Great greater Georgian
9:01 independence movement and then as
9:04 tensions continued building the local
9:06 Georgian Soviet government unilaterally
9:08 revoked the autonomy of South otia in
9:10 1990 without receiving approval from
9:12 Moscow fighting erupted between the
9:14 South oeans and the obas in the Georgian
9:16 government and after Georgia declared
9:18 their independence from the Soviet Union
9:21 in early 1991 the fighting in alazia and
9:23 South otia transformed into separatist
9:25 rebellions that the Russian government
9:27 began actively supporting with arms and
9:30 volunteers by 199 3 the Russian support
9:32 to the obas and South oian separatist
9:34 had proved decisive with separatist
9:36 forces managing to secure control over
9:38 the majority of the former autonomous
9:40 regions of abazia and South otia during
9:42 and after the war in abazia in
9:44 particular the obaz side perpetrated a
9:46 mass ethnic cleansing campaign of the
9:49 Region's Georgian population more than
9:51 200,000 ethnic Georgians were forcefully
9:53 expelled at gunpoint from abasia into
9:55 the rest of Georgia while more than
9:58 5,000 others were massacred by oba's
10:00 paramilitaries which severely altered
10:03 abazia demographics Jordans plummeted
10:07 from 45.7% of abazia population in 1989
10:10 to fewer than 18% by 2011 while the obas
10:13 population Rose from only 18% to about
10:15 51% of the total population over the
10:18 same time period despite this however
10:20 Georgia initially aligned itself closer
10:22 to Russia by joining the Moscow Le
10:23 defense Alliance known as the
10:25 Commonwealth of independent states at
10:28 the end of 1993 before withdrawing only
10:30 half a decade later in 199 99 along with
10:32 aeran and then after Vladimir Putin came
10:35 to power as Russia's president in 2000
10:36 Russia began pursuing a more forward
10:38 policy towards the separatist regions of
10:40 abazia and South oia with Georgia out of
10:43 the CST he led Russia into imposing a
10:45 Visa regime on Georgia at the end of
10:48 2000 and starting in 2002 he led Russia
10:50 into rolling out a massive passport
10:52 program to the residents of South otia
10:54 abazia without the Georgian government's
10:57 approval granting roughly 90% of each of
10:59 their population's Russian passp reports
11:01 and increasing Russian territorial
11:04 claims to the regions in the process
11:06 anger and resentment towards Georgia's
11:08 conciliatory foreign policy to Russia
11:09 along with lingering political
11:11 corruption and poverty mounted and
11:13 eventually culminated with the rose
11:15 revolution of 2003 which overthrew the
11:17 previous corrupt government led by
11:19 Edward chevat and catapulted the
11:22 extremely pro-western miky sakashi into
11:24 power as the country's next president
11:26 instead which radically altered
11:28 Georgia's geopolitical alignment the
11:30 previous Georgian government had
11:32 announced their intention to join NATO
11:34 the year before the Revolution in 2002
11:36 as Russia began giving passports to the
11:38 residents in South oia and abazia but
11:41 zakashi was passionately adamant about
11:43 Georgia's future in both NATO and the
11:45 European Union and he vowed that his top
11:47 foreign policy priority was returning
11:49 full Georgian control over the
11:51 separatist regions of aazia and South
11:53 oia once again and so to help align
11:55 Georgia more with the west and increase
11:56 their odds of becoming accepted into
11:59 NATO and the EU sakashi led the country
12:01 H into sending large numbers of Georgian
12:03 soldiers to support the US War efforts
12:06 in both Iraq and Afghanistan by 2008
12:08 Georgia had 2300 of their soldiers
12:10 deployed to Iraq the third highest
12:12 number of all the states in the
12:14 International Coalition behind only the
12:16 United States and the United Kingdom
12:18 themselves while in Afghanistan Georgia
12:20 became the largest non-nato and by far
12:22 the largest per capita troop contributor
12:25 with more than 1,500 soldiers deployed
12:28 there by 2012 in total between 2004 and
12:31 2021 more than 20,000 Georgian service
12:33 members served in Afghanistan while 32
12:35 Georgian servicemen were killed in
12:38 action and another 435 wounded in the
12:40 country Georgia's outsized contributions
12:42 to Iraq and Afghanistan were of course
12:44 deliberately crafted by sakash ville's
12:46 government to try and sway American and
12:48 Western support for Georgia's admission
12:50 to Nato in the European Union in order
12:52 to help Georgia eventually reassert its
12:54 own control over their separatist
12:57 regions of abcasia and South oia again
12:59 but it wasn't just Georgia's milit Ary
13:01 support in Iraq and Afghanistan that was
13:02 making the country more attractive to
13:04 the West either it was also the
13:06 increasingly valuable space that they
13:08 occupied on the board you see the
13:10 collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
13:13 opened up for the first time the massive
13:15 oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea
13:17 Basin to the Western World approximately
13:19 3% of the world's oil reserves and about
13:21 7% of the world's natural gas reserves
13:23 are found here around the Caspian and
13:25 while it used to all be dominated by the
13:27 Soviets and blocked off from the West
13:29 the Soviet collapse placed the key of
13:31 the Caspian Seas oil and gas resources
13:33 into the hands of newly independent
13:35 states like aeran Kazakhstan and
13:38 Turkmenistan just about every major
13:40 Western Energy company you can think of
13:41 began moving into the region across the
13:44 1990s to break themselves into the brand
13:46 new market but they quickly found that
13:48 it was going to be geographically
13:49 difficult to transport the Region's
13:51 energy resources from the landlocked
13:53 Caspian Sea to markets far away in
13:56 Europe initially every oil and gas
13:58 pipeline from the Caspian Sea ran
14:00 through Russia for first a legacy of
14:01 Russia's dominance over these countries
14:03 during the Soviet era the Western energy
14:05 companies wanted to construct their own
14:07 oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian
14:09 region that led back to Europe but they
14:11 wanted to avoid routing any of those
14:13 pipelines through Iran to the South or
14:15 through Russia to the north and that
14:17 left two possible options the pipelines
14:19 could either go from the Caspian Sea
14:21 through aeran Georgia and turkey towards
14:23 Europe or they could go from the Caspian
14:26 Sea through aeran Armenia and turkey
14:29 towards Europe instead but at the time
14:31 aeran and Armenia had a very serious
14:33 territorial dispute going on over the
14:36 status of negoro kabak and the two were
14:38 effectively locked in a frozen war with
14:41 one another aeran refused to consider
14:43 allowing this new export route to travel
14:45 through their arch geopolitical rival
14:47 and So to avoid Armenia the Western
14:50 energy companies along with aeran and
14:51 turkey decided to Route their new
14:53 Caspian oil export pipeline North
14:56 through Georgia instead completed in
14:59 2005 the new Baku tibilisi Sean o oil
15:01 pipeline enabled aeran to export their
15:03 oil supplies through Georgia and turkey
15:05 towards the Turkish Port of Sean where
15:07 oil tankers carry the oil the rest of
15:09 the way across the Mediterranean to
15:11 markets all across Europe the new route
15:12 enabled Europe to lessen their
15:14 dependence on oil imports coming in from
15:16 the Middle East and Russia and that gave
15:18 Georgia's location controlling the
15:19 center of the route a new found
15:21 strategic value to the
15:24 Europeans and then everything began
15:27 finally coming to a head in 2008 in
15:29 February of that year Kosovo
15:30 unilaterally declared its independence
15:32 from Serbia after being fully controlled
15:34 by separatist forces for nearly the past
15:37 decade kosovo's Independence was almost
15:38 immediately recognized by virtually
15:40 every single Western Country within a
15:42 matter of months and then seizing on the
15:45 precedent they believed at set obaz and
15:47 South oia each submitted a formal
15:49 request to Russia to officially
15:50 recognize their own independence from
15:52 Georgia and then the month after that in
15:55 April of 2008 came the NATO Summit in
15:57 Bucharest during which NATO's leaders
15:59 publicly made promises that Georgia
16:01 would one day soon be officially offered
16:04 an invitation to join the alliance but
16:06 this Prospect of Georgia entering into
16:08 NATO horrified the Russians and was
16:11 interpreted by Moscow as a firm red line
16:13 that shouldn't be crossed if Georgia
16:15 flipped from being within Russia's CST
16:18 military Alliance to Nato then Georgia
16:19 would likely be supported by NATO into
16:22 helping the sakashi government regain
16:23 control over all of the separatist
16:25 controlled parts of abazia and South
16:27 otia which would then Place NATO forces
16:29 largely in control over three of the
16:32 four primary entrances into the steps of
16:34 Southern Russia when factoring in Turkey
16:36 NATO's border with Russia would be
16:38 extended continuously all the way to the
16:40 greater Caucasus Mountains themselves
16:42 while the Eastern rim of the Black Sea
16:43 would be extended under NATO Maritime
16:45 control to position n NATO Maritime and
16:48 air assets precipitously close by to the
16:51 Russian Port of Nova RIS which is the
16:52 second most significant Naval base for
16:54 the Russian Black Sea Fleet after
16:56 sevastopol in Crimea and even more
16:58 importantly it's also the most
17:00 significant oil port on the Black Sea
17:03 Coast that sees about 2 million barrels
17:05 of oil per day flowing through it as
17:07 pipelines from Kazakhstan and Russia
17:09 transport their oil to be loaded up on a
17:12 tankers in the Nova Reis Harbor and on
17:14 top of all of that Georgia's entrance
17:15 into NATO would permanently drive a
17:18 wedge between Russia and Armenia another
17:20 member of the Moscow Leed CST military
17:22 Alliance that would become hugely
17:24 isolated from the rest of the alliance
17:25 which would then likely enable their
17:27 Rivals aeran and turkey to begin
17:29 steadily picking the country territory
17:31 apart without a clear Geographic Way for
17:33 their Ally Russia to actually intervene
17:35 to stop them Georgia's entrance into
17:37 NATO would also solidify the West's
17:40 control over the AER bani oil pipeline
17:42 route to Sean which would serve to
17:43 continue Europe's ability to lessen
17:45 their economic Reliance on Russian oil
17:47 and energy resources in the long term
17:49 and while Russia knew that NATO was not
17:51 plotting an imminent invasion of
17:53 Southern Russia after adding Georgia to
17:55 the alliance Most states that operate in
17:57 the International System including
17:58 Russia are more concerned about
18:01 capability than intent intent to invade
18:03 can evolve with time after all there
18:05 were few in Russia who perceived Germany
18:08 to be a major existential threat in 1930
18:10 but it only took 11 years from then for
18:12 Germany to launch an allout genocidal
18:15 war of Conquest into Russia anyway and
18:16 while intent can evolve with time
18:19 Geographic capability to attack remains
18:22 constant Georgia's admission into NATO
18:23 and their subsequent subjugation of
18:26 abazia and South oia would Place NATO
18:27 forces immediately opposite of the
18:29 greater Caucasus Mountain with three of
18:31 the primary entrances into flat Southern
18:34 Russia largely under their control a
18:36 highly sensitive part of the country was
18:37 Russia's own most serious active
18:39 separatist movements in Cheta and
18:41 dagistan where there were still major
18:43 active armed insurgencies going on at
18:46 the time Russia was fearful that NATO
18:48 could then utilize its new position in
18:50 Georgia to inflame or even support the
18:52 separatist movements in Cheta and
18:54 dagistan and undermined Russia even
18:56 further especially after they witnessed
18:59 NATO attack Serbia in 1999 and prob the
19:01 separatist movement in Kosovo afterwards
19:03 if NATO did something similar to support
19:05 the separatist movements in Cheta and
19:07 dastan in gaining independence and then
19:09 they allow NATO troops into their
19:11 territories as peacekeepers just like
19:14 Koso did after 1999 the NATO forces
19:15 would gain a direct foothold on the
19:18 Eurasian step itself on the Northern
19:20 side of the greater Caucasus Mountains
19:22 with a clear shot for tanks to advance
19:25 across the flat terrain towards asran
19:27 and vulgarr two of Russia's most
19:29 strategically important cities because
19:30 they control the vulgar River and
19:32 Russia's access to the oil and gas
19:35 fields of the Caspian Sea in the 20th
19:37 century when vulgarr was better known as
19:39 Stalingrad the city's strategic
19:41 importance was considered so great that
19:44 the Soviets paid as many as 2 million
19:46 lives to push the German Invaders away
19:48 from it and for all of these Myriad
19:50 reasons Putin's Russia calculated the
19:52 NATO's Promises of Georgia's membership
19:54 in the alliance at the Bucharest Summit
19:56 in April of 2008 were simply
19:58 unacceptable and they began preparing
20:00 for war War a few months later in August
20:02 of 2008 fighting broke out between South
20:04 oian separatist forces in the Georgian
20:06 Army and Russia seized on the
20:08 opportunity it presented by launching a
20:11 fullscale land sea and air invasion of
20:12 Georgia in the name of supposedly
20:14 protecting the south oans from a
20:16 genocide that they falsely alleged the
20:18 Georgians were carrying out in the
20:20 territory Russia claimed that their 2008
20:22 invasion of Georgia was a peacekeeping
20:24 operation the same way the NATO asserted
20:27 that their 1999 bombing of Serbia and
20:29 intervention in Kosovo was hundreds of
20:32 soldiers were killed around 200,000
20:34 people were forcibly displaced including
20:36 tens of thousands of Georgians were
20:37 ethnically cleansed and pushed out of
20:40 South oia and abazia South oia and
20:41 abazia independences were each
20:44 officially recognized by Russia and both
20:45 effectively came fully under Russian
20:47 military occupation with the
20:48 establishment of multiple Russian
20:51 military bases in each of them 20% of
20:52 Georgia's internationally recognized
20:54 territory then effectively became
20:56 extensions of Russia and Georgia reacted
20:58 by severing all diplomatic relations
21:00 with Russia which has remained the case
21:03 up until the present day Russia's
21:04 victory in the war proved to be a
21:06 strategic Boom for the kremlin's
21:07 geographic positioning around the
21:09 greater Caucasus Mountains their capture
21:11 of abazia extended Russia's control of
21:13 the Black Sea Coast established a buffer
21:15 away from their critical Port of Nova
21:17 RIS and secured firm Russian control
21:19 over the Western Coastal entrance from
21:21 Western Asia into Southern Russia while
21:23 their capture of South oia solidified
21:25 Russia's control over the entire extent
21:26 of the Roki tunnel passing through the
21:29 mountains and set the Russians up on a
21:31 strategic High Ground area only 2 km
21:33 away from the Georgian Military Road
21:35 pass which could enable Russian forces
21:37 to easily sever the road in the event of
21:39 a crisis and effectively shut down all
21:41 possible Overland travel routes from
21:43 Western Asia to Southern Russia it also
21:45 plac Russian forces within very close
21:48 Striking Distance of the Baku tii Sean
21:50 oil pipeline then almost runs right up
21:53 against South oian territory meaning
21:54 that if they wanted to in the event of a
21:57 crisis it would be very easy for Russia
21:58 to sever the pipeline in a eliminate
22:01 what is today a vital oil and gas artery
22:04 for Europe further still South oia's
22:05 control enabled Russian tanks and
22:07 artillery to position themselves fewer
22:11 than 50 km or only about 30 m away from
22:13 the Georgian capital of tibilisi a gun
22:15 permanently pointed to Georgia's head to
22:17 not continue advancing its relations
22:19 with the West again or
22:22 else after the disaster of the 2008 War
22:24 Miko sakashi lost the next Georgian
22:26 presidential election to the reclusive
22:28 billionaire bidzina Ian asvi and his
22:31 newly founded Georgian Dream party
22:32 Georgian Dream has remained in power in
22:34 Georgia ever since and while even
22:36 Ashville only served as the country's
22:38 official leader for a single year from
22:41 2012 to 2013 he has been widely believed
22:43 to have maintained his power over the
22:44 party and the leaders they've appointed
22:46 to govern in Georgia behind closed doors
22:49 ever since Ian ASV was born into poverty
22:51 in Soviet Georgia but he relocated to
22:53 Moscow in the 1980s and managed to
22:55 emerge as a newly minted oligarch in the
22:57 mining and banking Industries during the
22:59 gangster ridden chaos of Russia in the
23:01 1990s before eventually returning back
23:03 to his native Georgia again today
23:06 iashvili is by far the wealthiest man
23:08 alive in Georgia with an estimated net
23:11 worth of approximately $6 billion US
23:13 which is roughly equivalent to a third
23:15 of Georgia's entire annual GDP he ran on
23:17 a campaign in 2012 of balancing
23:19 Georgia's complicated relationship
23:21 between Russia and the west and
23:23 positioned himself with his Decades of
23:25 Prior experience in business relations
23:27 with Russia as a guaran of further
23:30 stability while he painted miky sakashi
23:32 as being a two pro Western figure who
23:33 would only continue exacerbating
23:36 tensions with Moscow that could provoke
23:38 Another War the strategy proved very
23:40 effective and in the years since then
23:41 the Georgian Dream is argued that in
23:43 order for Georgia to ever become
23:45 accepted into institutions like the EU
23:47 and NATO the country requires stable and
23:49 normalized relations with Russia first
23:51 so that the West doesn't ever believe
23:53 that Georgia will drag them into a war
23:55 the party paid lip service to continuing
23:57 with Georgia's bids to join nato in the
23:59 EU but in reality carried out very
24:01 little actual efforts to pursue them as
24:02 it sought to repair the shattered
24:06 relationship with Russia first meanwhile
24:08 Georgia's geopolitical position to the
24:09 West has grown increasingly more
24:11 important since the Georgian Dream took
24:14 over between 2008 and 2020 approximately
24:17 $45 billion was invested into developing
24:19 a series of natural gas pipelines
24:21 connecting the massive gas fields of
24:23 aeran with Europe that has become known
24:26 as the southern gas Corridor and just
24:28 like the previous Baku tibilisi Sean oil
24:30 pipeline that came before it the
24:32 southern gas Corridor routes through
24:34 Georgia instead of Armenia due to AER
24:36 Ban's opposition of having it routed
24:39 through their arch rival Armenia azan's
24:41 direct natural gas exports to Europe
24:43 through the southern gas Corridor began
24:45 only in 2020 and then the route became
24:48 even more critically important in 2022
24:50 after the Russians invaded Ukraine and
24:52 Europe decided to rapidly shift their
24:54 previously High Imports of Russian oil
24:56 and gas to Alternative providers instead
24:59 aeran with its massive gas fields in the
25:01 Caspian Sea and the existing
25:02 infrastructure and relationships already
25:05 in place was one of the most logical
25:07 alternatives for the Europeans to court
25:09 for additional supplies and as a result
25:11 aeran pledged to double their
25:13 pre-invasion gas exports to Europe
25:15 through the southern gas Corridor by
25:17 2027 by which point if all else remains
25:19 equal aeran will be providing the
25:22 European Union with as much as 6 to 7%
25:24 of their entire natural gas consumption
25:26 through the pipeline that runs through
25:29 Georgia which dramatic Ally increases
25:31 Georgia's strategic significance to the
25:34 west and so that largely explains why
25:36 the European Union finally granted
25:38 Georgia their long- awaited candidacy
25:40 status just a few months ago in December
25:43 of 2023 and now Russia would like to
25:45 keep Georgia out of joining the EU and
25:47 NATO for very similar reasons as they
25:50 did back in 2008 but they also have even
25:51 more reasons to prevent Georgia from
25:54 aligning too closely with the West today
25:56 too with the Russian Navy suffering
25:57 heavy losses to the ukrainians since the
26:00 War Began in 2022 the Russian Black Sea
26:02 fleet has been largely driven out of its
26:04 traditional bases in Crimea and forced
26:06 to relocate itself to Novar on the black
26:08 Sea's Eastern Rim well there has been
26:10 much discussion about expanding the
26:12 Black Sea fleet's presence in abazia
26:14 with a proposed new deep waterer base
26:16 that could end up being constructed here
26:18 at oam chire which would Place Russian
26:20 naval assets based there out of range of
26:22 most of Ukraine's weapons while still
26:24 enabling them to continue operating in
26:25 the Black Sea region developing the
26:27 ported oam chire would serve a dual
26:29 purpose of objective for the Kremlin
26:31 because it would also jeopardize the
26:33 eu's plans to assist Georgia with
26:35 developing their own nearby deep water
26:37 Port here at anoca as it currently
26:40 stands now Georgia doesn't have any deep
26:42 water ports which means that only
26:43 smaller displacement ships can carry
26:45 goods from the country's two primary
26:47 ports at Batumi and Podi which severely
26:49 restricts the volume of goods the
26:51 Georgian ports are capable of actually
26:53 exporting if aoco was therefore
26:55 developed into the country's first
26:57 proper deep water Port it could handle
26:59 substant stantially larger cargo
27:00 container vessels than what is currently
27:02 possible which would enhance Georgia's
27:04 ability to export large volumes of
27:07 products which would greatly enhance
27:09 Georgia's geopolitical location at the
27:11 epicenter of what is being called the
27:13 middle Corridor trade route a proposed
27:15 Trade Network of freight Railways
27:17 highways ports and faeries connecting
27:19 China with Europe by land without having
27:21 any part of the route traveling through
27:23 Western geopolitical opponents like Iran
27:26 or Russia or aarian Turkish geopolitical
27:28 opponents like Armenia this makes
27:30 Georgia the absolute Lynch pin in making
27:32 the middle corridor route actually
27:34 viable as the transformation of aoca
27:36 into a deep waterer Harbor would open up
27:38 the ability for Chinese manufactured
27:40 goods to travel over land to the port
27:42 and then get moved on mass aboard large
27:44 cargo container vessels the rest of the
27:46 way to markets in Europe all while
27:49 avoiding Russia Iran and Armenia in the
27:50 process in addition to all of the
27:52 critical oil and gas pipelines from the
27:54 Caspian Sea to Europe that runs through
27:56 Georgia this makes Georgia an absolutely
27:58 critical space for the Europeans to
28:00 consider having aligned on their side
28:03 and it's why the Europeans are very
28:04 interested in helping the Georgians with
28:06 developing this deep waterer port at a
28:09 noleia EU companies as well as Chinese
28:10 companies have all staked out bids to
28:12 construct the port while the Russians
28:14 would clearly prefer the Chinese to
28:16 construct and develop the port over the
28:18 Europeans in order to ensure Chinese
28:20 influence and control over the entire
28:22 length of the middle Corridor trade
28:24 route Russia might even simply prefer
28:26 that AA never be developed at all in
28:28 order to just block the middle corridor
28:30 routes viability entirely and force
28:32 Europe to continue relying either on the
28:33 Northern Corridor land route that runs
28:35 through Russia or the much longer
28:37 Southern Maritime route through the Suez
28:39 Canal or around the Cape of Africa and
28:41 what better way to shut the ports
28:43 prospects down than by constructing a
28:45 brand new naval base in abazia at oire
28:48 only 36 km away from it that could
28:51 become a target of the war in Ukraine
28:53 Georgia has entertained both sides in
28:55 the port's development and Georgia is
28:56 well aware of their increased
28:58 geopolitical value to both the and to
29:01 Russia since 2022 it may even be
29:02 possible that the Georgian Dream
29:04 government has weaponized the prospect
29:06 of them drawing closer to Russia and
29:08 China in order to Simply exert more
29:09 leverage on Western countries and
29:11 companies to get better terms out of
29:14 them on ania's development and ownership
29:15 but now with the imminent passing of the
29:17 georan dreams new foreign influence law
29:18 in the country that could enable the
29:20 government to crack down on opposition
29:22 media outlets and suppress descent
29:24 Georgia's geopolitical future has never
29:27 been more up in the air as it is now the
29:30 EU and NATO have both heavily criticized
29:31 the law and have said that his passing
29:33 is incompatible with their values which
29:36 jeopardizes Georgia's ability to align
29:37 itself with the west and might push the
29:39 government to move even further than it
29:42 already has into the camp of Russia and
29:44 China it's also conceivably possible
29:46 that the widescale protests going on in
29:49 Georgia right now against the law could
29:50 eventually evolve into a Georgian
29:52 version of the maidon Revolution that
29:55 exploded in Ukraine back in 2014 that
29:57 toppled what was then Ukraine's deeply
29:59 pro-russian government but if something
30:01 like that were to happen again in
30:03 Georgia today it is almost a certainty
30:05 that the moment it appeared the Jordan
30:07 dream party was about to lose its grip
30:09 on power the Kremlin would calculate
30:11 that another military intervention into
30:13 the country to support them would become
30:14 necessary Moscow would almost certainly
30:16 attempt to label any potential Revolt in
30:19 Georgia as a us and Ukraine backed color
30:21 revolution in coup and then they would
30:23 use that as a pretext to justify sending
30:25 in soldiers again in support of the
30:27 government and just because the Russian
30:29 armed forces are massively bogged down
30:31 at the moment in Ukraine doesn't mean
30:33 that Moscow wouldn't have the bandwidth
30:35 to also send in an intervention in
30:37 Georgia there is very very high
30:39 precedent for Russia doing things like
30:41 this going back to their 2014
30:43 intervention in Ukraine After the maidon
30:45 Revolution When They seized Crimea their
30:47 2020 intervention into bellus to help
30:49 quash pro-western protests that erupted
30:50 against the Belarusian dictator
30:53 Alexander lucenko and their January 2022
30:55 intervention into Kazakhstan to help
30:57 quash anti-government protests that
30:59 interrupted there as well approximately
31:02 2,000 Russian soldiers had been deployed
31:03 to negoro kabak between Armenia and
31:06 aeran as peacekeepers but after aeran
31:08 overran the territory in September of
31:10 2023 and the Armenian government
31:12 collapsed there the Russians suddenly
31:14 announced in April of 2024 that they
31:16 would be withdrawing all 2,000 of their
31:18 troops from the area and it's anyone's
31:20 best guess where they might end up
31:22 getting redeployed to potentially to
31:24 Ukraine or to potentially monitor the
31:27 evolving situation in Georgia if Russia
31:28 had the excuse to launch an intervention
31:30 into Georgia again today they could
31:32 deliberately sabotage the major oil and
31:34 gas pipelines in Georgia connecting AER
31:36 Ban's fields to Europe which would
31:38 eliminate a huge amount of Europe's
31:40 energy supplies and apply significantly
31:42 higher economic and inflationary
31:44 pressures on Europe in the process they
31:45 could also claw out a land bridge to
31:49 their theoretical CST Ally Armenia and
31:50 establish a continuous land connection
31:53 all the way to Iran in the process who
31:55 is increasingly becoming a close
31:57 economic and military ally of Russia's
31:59 today and would also guarantee that the
32:01 middle Corridor trade route project
32:03 between the west and China would be
32:05 forever a dead and buried idea enhancing
32:07 their own leverage on Europe to come
32:09 back to relying on their own Northern
32:11 Corridor trade route instead since the
32:13 Georgian Dream party often tries to
32:14 portray themselves as the Agents of
32:16 stability between the East and the west
32:18 and the only thing that stands between
32:20 the Georgian people and another Russian
32:23 invasion the Kremlin might also reason
32:25 that another major intervention into
32:27 Georgia could serve the purpose of
32:28 effectively sh in the Georgian
32:30 population into falling back in line
32:31 with their own increasingly
32:34 authoritarian and pro-russian government
32:37 in the end Georgia's future is a deeply
32:39 uncertain one right now and it remains
32:41 to be seen how the country's geography
32:43 will continue affecting its complicated
32:46 Destiny between East and West going
32:48 forward now there's a lot of data that
32:49 goes into producing these kinds of
32:51 videos whether it's showing the
32:52 percentages of Georgians who wish to
32:54 join the European Union why Russia is so
32:56 concerned about controlling the greater
32:58 Caucasus Mountains range how much of the
32:59 world's oil and gas reserves can be
33:01 found around the Caspian Sea and how the
33:03 Europeans and Western energy companies
33:04 chose to Route their pipelines from the
33:06 area the ability to visualize raw data
33:08 like this on the map is exactly what
33:11 makes learning so fascinating to me and
33:12 it's why the exploring data visually
33:14 course is one of my favorite courses
33:16 that I've ever taken with this video
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