On February 1, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili said in an interview with Bloomberg that after the end of the war in Ukraine, Russia must return the occupied territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia.
According to Zurabishvili, the defeat of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine is quickly approaching and after the end of the war, the issue of returning Georgian territories should also be a subject of discussion during the preparation of peace agreements. “Russia must find out where its borders are,” the Georgian president said.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which occupy about a fifth of Georgia, declared their independence in the 1990s amid the collapse of the USSR; Georgia did not recognize their independence, but did not actually control these territories.
In 2008, during the five-day war between Georgia and Russia, Moscow brought tanks into these territories and officially recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed states. Only four states agreed to this: Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru and Syria. According to UN documents, Abkhazia and South Ossetia are Georgian autonomous regions. Georgia officially considers them territories occupied by Russia. De facto, they are under the complete control of Moscow. Since 2008, there have been no diplomatic relations between Georgia and Russia.
In April 2022, the President of South Ossetia, Anatoly Bibilov, announced the start of preparations for a referendum on the republic’s entry into Russia and merger with North Ossetia. The Kremlin stated that Bibilov's initiative was not coordinated with Moscow. The referendum ultimately did not take place.
If the West, as part of the terms of surrender, does not demand that Russia completely withdraw its troops from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it “will make another big mistake - as big as in 2008 and 2014,” Zurabishvili said, referring to Moscow’s annexation of the Ukrainian Crimea in 2014.