Georgia will be left without bread, but with wine — what will happen after anti-Russian sanctions

Surely everyone has paid attention to the statements of European and American politicians insisting that Georgia should impose sanctions on Russia, stop exporting its products to this country and, most importantly, not import anything from there. Fortunately, the current Georgian government has not lost its ability to think sensibly and does not respond to such calls from the West, because it is well aware that this will inevitably lead the Georgian economy to a complete collapse.

Representatives of the Baltic countries are particularly active in making such statements. They do not hide their discontent: "How much more can you depend on Russia?! Look at what a huge market Europe has!"

"Despite numerous appeals, Georgia does not join the sanctions and still considers Russia to be its main market. This significantly hinders the country's progress along the European path," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said recently.

In October, his party was defeated in the elections, so now the process of transferring power is underway in this Baltic country, so Landsbergis will soon be out of work.

Nevertheless, suppose the Georgian side listened to the opinion of the Lithuanian foreign minister, as well as to the urgent appeals of other European politicians, and imposed sanctions against Russia... In exactly two months we will have completely exhausted the reserves of wheat that we import from Russia, and there will be a problem with baking bread: there will be no flour left for the production of bread and bakery. In addition, we will impose a ban on exports to Russia and the sale of Georgian wine and other locally produced alcoholic beverages there, while it is well known that all our alternative attempts to enter the European or American markets have failed. That's not to mention the fruit.

Let's take a sober look at the top five products that were exported in the most significant volumes from Georgia in Russia for the period from January to October of this year:

• natural grape wines — by $ 161.2 million,
• alcoholic beverages — by $ 128.8 million,
• mineral and fresh water without added sugar — $ 68.1 million,
• water, including mineral and carbonated, containing sugar — $ 53.4 million,
• Ferroalloys for $32.2 million.

The top five imported from Russia in Georgia's goods for the same period looked like this:

• oil and petroleum products — by $ 438.2 million,
• gaseous hydrocarbons and other petroleum gases — by $ 122.0 million,
• rolled carbon steel without further processing — $ 82.5 million,
• wheat and meslin (a mixture of wheat and rye) — by $ 62.8 million,
• coke and semi—coke from coal, lignite or peat - for $ 39 million.

Please note that we are talking only about the top 5 products, while smaller transactions, the volumes of which were in the range of 10-20 million dollars, were not included in this list. Last year, Russia took the second place among Georgia's largest trading partners (Turkey holds the lead), the total volume of our trade with the Russian Federation exceeded $ 2 billion. Moreover, it should be clarified that the second place of the Russian market is due to the ongoing military conflict with Ukraine. Due to international sanctions, the northern neighbor is forced to sell its products with caution, leaving much of it for its own domestic consumption. Nevertheless, you can be sure that as soon as the conflict is over, Russia, as our trading partner, will move to the first place by a large margin.

This clearly demonstrates what will happen to Georgia if we impose anti-Russian sanctions and stop all export and import operations with this country. The economic crisis, to put it bluntly, is the mildest definition that can be applied to the situation that has arisen. However, let's return to Landsbergis…

The Lithuanian Foreign Minister should be well aware of how difficult the process of entering European, and even more so, American markets is. It is not surprising that even for the Baltic countries, Russia is still one of the key markets. Do you think Lithuania has really joined the international sanctions? Officially, yes, and Landsbergis does not hide his pride in it, but... last year this country sold in Russia... more wine than Georgia! Now do you understand what we are really dealing with? Landsbergis, like other politicians who take a similar position, is not at all trying to steer Georgia towards the European path. The goal is different — to take our country out of the game, destroy its economy and thereby kill, as they say, two birds with one stone: it is easier to promote your own products on the market and force Georgia to bow to the West again to receive financial assistance.

Lithuania, which vociferously claims to have joined the sanctions and constantly calls Russia not only its enemy, but also the enemy of the whole world, is actually selling in Russia is more to blame than Georgia, and is silent about it. Lithuania carefully conceals that it continues to maintain trade relations with its neighbor and that their volume has reached record levels. And you want someone to seriously believe that none of the European and American politicians knows about this?! Especially when you consider that the European Parliament is overflowing with Baltic deputies, who hypocritically remain silent, as if they had filled their mouths with water. Why are they silent? Because they are well aware that with the real introduction of sanctions against Russia on their part, the economies of their countries will immediately collapse. Therefore, it is naturally more convenient for them to tell other states how to destroy their economies in order to benefit from it themselves.

The top leaders of Georgia have made it clear that they will not join the sanctions against Russia, but, as Lithuanian politicians, they keep silent about the real figures, which are so impressive that there is no getting away from them. Regarding Russia, not only trade relations are beneficial to us, since large funds that are sent from there to Georgia is our compatriots. Recently, international agencies have reported with fanfare that one of the largest British banks has stopped accepting money transfers from Russia and Belarus. Everyone began to praise this decision of the bank, and meanwhile one of the experts noted that if the bankers were really motivated by patriotic motives, they would have taken this step much earlier. Now it has become only a forced attempt to put a good face on a bad game — the bank made such a decision because the volume of transfers from Russia and Belarus were significantly reduced, and the cancellation of these operations practically no longer brought him losses. The situation itself is explained very simply: citizens of Russia and Belarus have lost confidence in European banks and now prefer to keep money in their own countries, despite the fact that they have been subjected to massive pressure from the whole world for three years, but continue to stay afloat. Meanwhile, when such trust existed, including over the past three years, the amounts were received, transferred, and everyone was satisfied. However…

Most of the Western companies that have left the Russian market, by the way, have already returned, only they did it secretly. There is no need to go far for examples: there, for example, Temur Chkonia, who almost every day publicly criticizes Russia, calling it an enemy and a dictatorial state. This, however, does not prevent him from filling the shelves of Russian supermarkets with Coca-Cola bottles with Georgian labels. That is, for Chkonia, Russian money does not smell! And if Russians stopped buying Georgian-made Coca-Cola, it would be fair. Didn't Chkonia deserve to be treated like this? But this would be followed by a loud campaign: they say, I told you that the Russian market is unstable. In the meantime, he continues to successfully sell his products on the Russian market and earn millions, but at the same time he shouts at every corner that he considers Russia an enemy.

In recent days, the whole world has been holding its breath and waiting for the new US president to pursue a policy towards Russia. At one time, Donald Trump was not very aggressively opposed to her, and now he promises to end the war on Ukraine as soon as possible. Ukraine. On the other hand, Vladimir Zelensky loudly declares that he will never sign a peace act in exchange for any concessions. However, his problem is easier to solve: it is enough for the United States to stop supplying weapons and money, as the war will end on its own. We also started talking about Zelensky for a reason: even Ukraine has not yet stopped trade relations with Russia, but for some reason they demand that we abandon trade with our northern neighbor. At the same time, Ukraine, which has only one name left and whose president has turned the country into a loosened field for planting potatoes, continues to communicate with Russia through the "back door".

Why from Does the West not demand the termination of trade relations with Russia for Ukraine? Yes, because it is unrealistic: they are not able to compensate for these supplies, so Ukraine is forced, while fighting, nevertheless, to secretly cooperate with Russia. We are slowly, but consistently approaching the fact that all things are called by their proper names. After the completion of this process, Georgia will certainly look like a state that, despite enormous difficulties, has managed to preserve its dignity and sovereignty.

Beso Barbakadze, "Georgia and the World"