Flights of Russian airlines to Georgia have been suspended since July 8, 2019 by decree of President Vladimir Putin. Georgian airlines were also banned from flying to Russia. At the moment, Russians can enter Georgia through third countries, such as Armenia or Turkey.
The decision was made against the backdrop of protests in Tbilisi that took place on June 20, 2019. Their reason was that State Duma deputy from the Communist Party Sergei Gavrilov sat in the speaker’s chair during the opening of the meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy in the Georgian Parliament.
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The opposition Georgian parties United National Movement and European Georgia considered that a deputy from Russia, a country that is considered to have occupied Georgian Abkhazia and South Ossetia and with which Tbilisi has no diplomatic relations, cannot be in the Georgian parliament, let alone occupy seat of chairman.
The protesters demanded the resignation of Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze and the holding of snap parliamentary elections. Kobakhidze complied with their demands by resigning from June 21st. The police dispersed the rally using rubber bullets and tear gas. More than 200 people were injured in the riots.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili then said that the protests in the country are beneficial only for Russia, calling it “an enemy and an occupier.”
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, noted that Georgia had “finished its game” and the “occupier” was retreating, taking its tourists out of the Georgian economy. “Politicians are fantastic in Georgia: they themselves decided to host a parliamentary forum, they themselves were horrified by this, they themselves shot each other, they themselves, like 30 years ago, did not bother to remember about laws and political institutions, and the next day the whole country was in posters “Russia guilty,” she said.
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