“In Ukraine, the Americans put what it takes for a victory”


Georgian President Salomé Zourabichvili, former French ambassador who became Minister of Foreign Affairs then MP before her election in 2018, returns for Paris Match to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, its current and future consequences for her country and on the place women at the head of states.

Paris Match. You have just returned from Washington, where you attended the funeral of former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. What do you remember from her?
Salome Zurabishvili. I had great admiration for her. I knew her at different times, especially when she had her club of female foreign ministers. She was very much involved in creating a network between these women leaders. The other affinity I had with her is that she came from Eastern Europe, she was a refugee in the United States, she led this impressive career without forgetting her roots or the fate of these countries. from the Soviet bloc or the Soviet Union. It’s something that has always interested her and that she has always cared about.

During this trip, you met American officials and elected officials…
I actually took the opportunity to have meetings with Congress at a very important time, since it coincided with the period when they passed the Georgia Support Act, the act by which Congress provides economic support, military assistance and politics in Georgia. And, which is not directly linked but all the same, with President Biden’s speech to Congress to deliver 33 billion dollars in aid to Ukraine in various forms, including around 20 billion for military assistance. , which is something we have never seen. What is very interesting is that this morning, [le ministre russe des Affaires étrangères] Sergei Lavrov said that Russia would not try to have an obligatory date for the end of what they call their “special military operation”, with May 9 in mind. The deadlines are getting longer and this is what I took away from the talks in Washington: the Americans are convinced, and are doing what it takes to ensure that it ends in victory. That’s the feeling I had and was expressed by people I met in Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She also went to kyiv to bring this message of extreme optimism.

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Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili.

© Giorgi Abdaladze, administration of the Presidency of Georgia

“The women who have been in charge have governed like men”

The displacement of Nancy Pelosi in Ukraine is a strong signal, on behalf of that which is the third character of the American State. Besides, do you think that a woman at the head of a state governs differently in a situation as complex as the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
My hunch is that it’s a very different perspective, maybe a different way of governing. But in reality, we don’t have this experience yet because the women who have been in charge have governed like men. We can think of Golda Meir, or Margaret Thatcher during the Falklands War: in both cases, they were two women who did not allow themselves to govern as women. The abstract question is whether Putin had been a woman: could a woman go to such toughness in war, without compromise or nuance? I do not know. The conference that I organize [le 25 mai] in Tbilisi with women political leaders, but also women from the world of culture or the economy, is precisely intended to have conversations, to allow exchanges on the various conflicts or on their participation in a certain number of conflict management.

In particular, you are in regular discussions with Maia Sandu, your Moldovan counterpart…
I found her, during our last conversation, very concerned that they are going to be virtually embargoed on energy, electricity and gas, which are both controlled by Russia in their case , in particular via Transnistria for electricity and directly for gas. This country is even more fragile in the face of Russian pressure, because it is a small country, with a huge influx of Ukrainian refugees. There is American and European aid to support them, but it is complicated to be a woman, like her and Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița, and it is their first experience of power for both of them. It is an extremely difficult start.

“The Russian-Georgian war of 2008 only accelerated the process towards the European Union”

The situation in Georgia is different?
We are exposed in the same way, not being under the control and protection of NATO or the European Union, and we also have occupied territories, but our energy dependence is quite low because we depend mainly from Azerbaijan for gas and oil and from Turkey for electricity, but only out of season because otherwise we produce it ourselves thanks to hydroelectric dams. So we have a certain resistance capacity but Russia is on the border, with very important military bases on its southern part, and military bases in the occupied territories and a large one in the south of Georgia, on Armenian territory. We are well surrounded but Georgia has a certain resistance capacity because it has been 26 centuries since in this strategic region where we have been invaded by practically all the empires that have existed and we count four invasions by Russia in the space of two centuries.
Let’s say it’s not a new experience: it doesn’t make things any easier, but there is a capacity in the population to remain placid. We do not feel extreme anxiety, even if people are aware of the situation in which we may find ourselves. But that does not change the solidarity with Ukraine or the determination to join the European Union, on the contrary. It is today that our Prime Minister Irakli Garibachvili is giving the European Union Ambassador the first part of our questionnaire, which Ukraine and Moldova have already returned: the process is moving forward and this is a source of great hope and great comfort for the population, to see that this European perspective, which was perceived as a horizon that recedes as one approaches it, suddenly takes on a real reality. This is extremely important for the self-confidence of the country, of the population, of its government.

Some denounced the rapprochements, on the part of the countries of the East, with the European Union or NATO, as “provocations” towards Russia…
This is something we have never believed in: when there is no European advance, that does not mean that Russia stops occupying the territories or behaves differently. And above all, the great Georgian conviction is that nothing should change the perspective. The Russo-Georgian war of 2008 only accelerated the process towards the European Union and NATO, with the liberalization of visas, the market with the European Union, very tangible progress. In the same way with NATO: Georgia was very present in Afghanistan, it was the most represented country per inhabitant, and every year we have two exercises linked to NATO. It’s all such a part of our foreign policy that nothing changes it. Russian threats may exist but 80% of the population supports this European orientation because it is convinced that it is the only perspective for the development of the political system and internal security. There is no Russian temptation and it shows very well. People vote with their legs: not a single student goes to study in Moscow, they all go to study in European or American universities, and all of our population, legal or illegal, who goes to work abroad chooses the Europe or the United States, no one is looking to Russia. The only Georgians who have remained there are those who lived there during the time of the Soviet Union and who continued, despite a few waves of return, to live there because they have family and work.

Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili with her German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin, May 2, 2022.

Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili with her German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin, May 2, 2022.

© Michele Tantussi / Reuters

Do you think that the support given to Georgia, in a situation where all eyes are on Ukraine, is sufficient? What more would you need?
I think there should be, and this was the point of my message to Washington, more verbal and political support – there is also all the economic and financial support. The main support from the European side is that this acceleration of the integration process becomes a reality and not just an announcement, and I believe that there is a new approach to European countries here. On the American side, I argued that, beyond the Ukrainian priority, which is beyond doubt, this should not be a reason to forget Georgia like Moldova: above all, we must not send a counter-message to Moscow that there might be the slightest lapse of attention because of the focus on the Ukrainian conflict.

“The beginning of the aggression against Ukraine was intended to psychologically break the resistance and impress the rest of the world”

The 2008 Russian-Ukrainian war only lasted five days. Did you think the war in Ukraine would last this long?
I think everyone was surprised, me and everyone else, and I think the Russian leadership too, and very clearly. All forecasts, including those of the Americans, estimated that kyiv would fall in three days. Everyone was surprised by several things: the capacity for military resistance and the organization of Ukrainian defence, but also by the unity of the population. To see these families who left, the men who came back – and still come back now – to fight… There is unanimity, I did not hear dissonant voices as sometimes when a war drags on: the population is totally unanimous behind its president and it is quite exceptional. The two elements together explain what is already a victory, whatever the outcome, and which cannot be attributed to external support since they came after the Ukrainians had already demonstrated their capacity to resist. and unity. Initially, we saw withdrawals from embassies and calls to evacuate their nationals, which I found a bit hasty. We left our embassy and our consulates until the end, we are very proud of that.

In addition to this underestimation of Ukrainian popular and military resistance, hasn’t there been an overestimation of the Russian army?
Of course, because there is always this impression of power that Russia gives off. One of the glaring modalities of the invasion of Georgia at the time by Russia was the arrival of the tanks, with an attempt to impress, to show what we had shown in the past, with the Soviet Union, that Russia was still capable of it. I also believe that the beginning of the aggression against Ukraine, with this attack on all fronts, was intended to psychologically break the Ukrainian resistance and impress the rest of the world. And all the calculations were wrong.

Do you think that the invasion of Ukraine marks a change without return for the region?
It is in any case a definitive turning point, we will not return to the previous situation. I think the Ukrainian leadership is very clear: it cannot afford to give up, after so many human and material losses, with the destruction of part of the country. It is a very high cost for what must be a victory.



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