Second Front: West Destabilizes Caucasus to Weaken Russia | Stanislav Krapivnik

## The strategic contest at the heart of the Caucasus A striking through-line of the conversation is the claim that the Caucasus is not an accidental theatre of instability but a deliberately contested space where external powers — chiefly Western states and regional actors — push and pull to reshape loyalties and leverage influence against Russia. That argument, articulated throughout the exchange and advanced most pointedly by Stanislav Krapivnik, reframes recent episodes in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan not as isolated domestic dramas but as elements in a broader campaign to weaken Russian influence by atomizing the South Caucasus. What follows teases out the layers of that contention: historical wounds, the mechanics of influence, and the local reactions that have produced both resistance and rupture. ## Georgia’s double movement: neutrality and rupture Georgia’s turnaround since the early 2000s is remarkable in both physical and political terms. Returning observers notice new skylines and construction; political analysts see a country that once moved decisively into the Western camp now attempting a strategic recalibration. Krapivnik points to Georgia’s 2022 neutrality declaration as a smart, if pressured, move — an attempt to extract the country from an earlier formula in which alignment with Western institutions translated into near-colonial dependence. That earlier formula reached a crescendo under Mikheil Saakashvili, whose government relied on Western training and political backing to orient Georgia decisively against Moscow. The conversation paints that alignment as transactional — Western actors provided training, money and political cover, and in return expected Tbilisi to follow a playbook of anti-Russian posture and internal liberal reforms. The backlash has been a steady push by elements within Georgia to reclaim national sovereignty, cultural identity, and a more independent foreign policy, culminating in a cautious drift away from an unquestioning Western script. ## The long shadow of 2008 The 2008 war over South Ossetia is presented not as a simple Russian aggression narrative but as a catastrophic consequence of a specific set of policy choices and provocations. Krapivnik revisits the months before the conflict: a proposed “3+1” framework that might have reintegrated Abkhazia and South Ossetia under an autonomous arrangement was allegedly scuttled when Western actors signaled that Georgia should not be encouraged toward a settlement with Moscow. The result, he contends, was a chain of events in which Western-trained Georgian brigades spearheaded operations into South Ossetia, provoking a forceful Russian response. The account is vivid and consequential: conscripts thrown into combat, videos from soldiers documenting atrocities, and a rapid Russian counter-movement that, despite being composed of second-tier forces by many accounts, managed to blunt and roll back the Georgian advance. For many inside Georgia, these events discredited the Saakashvili era and created deep societal scars — both in terms of trust in Western patronage and in the trauma of violent confrontation. The 2008 episode remains a reference point for both critics of Western interventionism and those who argue that external backing can produce reckless adventurism. ## Influence operations: NGOs, training programs, and patronage One of the strongest themes is the role of non-military tools in shaping political outcomes. According to Krapivnik, Georgia’s civil society landscape was flooded with foreign-funded NGOs — an astonishing number for a country of roughly 3.5 million people. These organizations, he argues, were centrally implicated in a cultural and political campaign that often targeted the nation’s church and traditional institutions under the banner of progressive reform. The cumulative effect, he claims, was not simply the promotion of liberal values but a systematic undermining of local identity. Closely related are the security-sector training programs that brought Georgian officers into contact with Western professional cultures and, in some cases, created dependable vectors of influence within the military and police. The conversation suggests these programs were a two-edged sword: they strengthened capabilities but also cultivated cadres whose loyalties were perceived — by critics — as split or susceptible to external persuasion. The Georgian Dream government’s subsequent efforts to root out Western-aligned officers, and to pass transparency measures for NGO funding, are framed as attempts to rebalance sovereignty and reduce foreign leverage. The discussion also contends that soft-power instruments are complemented by the harder currency of patronage. Krapivnik describes a system where influence is maintained by securing permanent options for beneficiaries — pathways to residency, jobs, and financial stability — which in turn insures those actors’ willingness to act in ways favorable to external sponsors. It is a blunt reminder that influence operations rarely rely on coercion alone; they work by co-opting local elites and institutional channels. ## Regional players and demographic pressure: Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia Beyond Western penetration, the conversation turns to regional dynamics that complicate any neat binary of West versus Russia. Turkey’s growing economic and cultural presence in Adjara and parts of western Georgia is singled out as an example of demographic leverage. Allegations of mass naturalization and family relocation, combined with public rhetoric from Ankara claiming historical affinity or ownership, are interpreted as a long-term strategy of soft territorial encroachment. Krapivnik warns that such demographic investments, if left unchecked, can crystallize into political claims — especially in areas where central authority is weak. Azerbaijan’s military resurgence after the Nagorno-Karabakh campaigns is another major axis of instability. The conversation highlights concerns about an emergent Azerbaijani assertiveness that looks beyond Nagorno-Karabakh to broader territorial ambitions and regional influence, including potential pressure on Iran’s Azeri-populated regions. These shifts open space for external actors such as Israel to establish footholds for operations in the neighbourhood, which in turn feeds a cascading security dilemma. Armenia, meanwhile, is depicted as oscillating between domestic pressures and international overtures. The discussion points to Pashinyan’s government as courting the European Union and other partners in ways that alarm both Russia and hardline domestic constituencies. Taken together, the three South Caucasus republics form a mosaic of competing strategies: Moscow’s security guarantees, Ankara’s cultural and demographic investments, Baku’s hard power, and the EU/US emphasis on governance and liberal reform. The interaction of these vectors produces both localized crises and wider strategic friction. ## Why the latest Maidan failed and what it reveals The recent wave of protests in Georgia — modelled in some respects on previous “color revolutions” — is diagnosed as a replay of a familiar insurgent playbook, but one that ultimately came up short. Krapivnik attributes the failure to several converging factors: the replacement of pro-Western officers with more nationally oriented personnel in the armed forces and police; a resurgent cultural conservatism that rejected an anti-church agenda; and, crucially, the state’s exposure of foreign funding and orchestration. The conversation also draws attention to the sad and cynical tactics used by some organizers: attempts to engineer symbolic martyrdom by placing children at the front of confrontations, or paying small groups of demonstrators modest sums to sustain visible agitation. Those techniques, effective in earlier moments of political shock, had less purchase this time because Georgian institutions and broad swathes of soci

Second Front: West Destabilizes Caucasus to Weaken Russia Today I’m talking to Stanislav Krapivnik, a former US Army officer, supply chain executive and military-political expert. Links: Stanislav Krapivnik's YouTube Channel: @MrSlavikman Stanislav Krapivnik's Telegram: https://t.me/stastydaiobratno Neutrality Studies Goods Shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com #M3 For Georgia, you know, the West plays against itself because the West comes with an attitude of, "If you're not going to play by my rules, I'm going to take my toys out of your sandbox. And then I'm going to turn your sandbox over and hack it up with a chainsaw." That's the concept of the West: you either do what we say, or we're going to try to destroy everything you are. So, about two and a half months ago, the U.S. Congress passed a law about bringing democracy to Georgia. Let that sink in. We don't agree with the choice of the people, so we're going to give you our choice. We're going to shove it down your throat, doing whatever we can. We're going to put our efforts into revolutionizing your government and shoving our puppets in, because that's democracy. #M2 Hello everybody, this is Pascal from Laterality Studies, and today I'm talking again to Stanislav Krapivnik, a former US Army officer, supply chain executive, and military-political expert. Stas, welcome back to the channel. #M3 Thank you. Always a pleasure. #M2 Glad to have you back, because we said we wanted to discuss Georgia and the Caucasus a bit, since a lot of things have been happening. I actually just recorded a video earlier with two other colleagues, and I would love to also get your take on what's going on in—well, let's start with Georgia. #M3 -- 1 of 18 -- Okay. Yeah, my background in Georgia is—well, I won't say super extensive, but it's extensive. I was a military advisor in Georgia for the UN mission back in 2002 to 2003. So that's how I got to know the country. I have some relatives here, so I come back here often enough. I was also here on vacation in '22. This was when all the anti-Russian propaganda was at its peak. I was here in 2024, first on vacation, and you could see the day-and-night shift and the collapse of the propaganda. We were there right after the May Maidan attempt. Then I was here covering the elections and the first protests that broke out after the elections. Well, to say that they "broke out" is ridiculous, because they were absolutely planned and prepared, and everybody knew when and where they were going to be—including the authorities, obviously. #M2 You occasionally visit Georgia and have had this 20-year history with the country. Over this time, how has the country changed? #M3 Oh, it changed incredibly. You know, I hadn't driven in Georgia since 2003. Then I came back—we drove down in 2022. And, you know, it's the male root instinct: you still remember how you drive. I could remember the roads, but the buildings—half the buildings were different. Yeah, they'd been rebuilt. New buildings had taken their place. So, yeah, it was kind of like poking around, thinking, "I think this is where we're going." Yeah, because the country had physically changed. I mean, I'd been there in between that time, but I was always in a taxi or something like that. So you kind of notice what's going on around you, but it's not the same as when you're behind the wheel. So the country has changed quite a bit, and there are huge construction projects on the outskirts. Georgia took an extremely intelligent position in 2022 when it declared it would be neutral. And this is considering the massive strain, both external and internal. First and foremost, just to understand Georgia, Georgia is actively breaking away from being a colony of the West. Saakashvili fully tied it to the West, especially after the 2008 war. And the interesting thing about the 2008 war is that, right before it, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin proposed to Georgia the "3 plus 1" talks. So that's Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, plus Russia. And the aim of those talks was to form a confederacy where those two provinces would return into Georgia's fold, similar to what happened with Adjara to the southwest, where the capital of Adjara is Batumi. It has broad powers of autonomy. And Saakashvili agreed. And the moment he agreed, Condoleezza Rice came galloping over, and we got the 2008 war. Because the last thing the Americans want is peace to break out—God forbid peace breaks out. Because war and conflict are always the leverage and the coin that they use to pay their way through. So that war then ruined relations for quite a long time. -- 2 of 18 -- And even though the anti-Russian hawks are still screaming that Russia started that war—which it didn't—there was an EU commission, and the EU is anything but on the Russian side, even back then. There was an EU commission that came out and said, yes, absolutely, the Georgians started the war. They had reasons; they tried to excuse that. But yes, the Georgians fired the first shots. The Georgians invaded. And when I was in Georgia in 2002, I knew the special forces guys—I hung out and drank beer with them—who were setting up the first American brigades. By American, I mean American training. So Chevron had agreed to allow them to set up two brigades. So they were doing the filtration, getting the right—not so much physically the right specimens, but mentally the right specimens, if you understand what I'm saying. And then that got handed over to the U.S. Marine Corps. The Marines were here setting them up, standing them up into two brigades. And these brigades were then used by the U.S. government to help overthrow Shevardnadze and put in Saakashvili. And then Saakashvili used those two brigades as the leading spear tips in his attack on South Ossetia. And, you know, if you're going to commit genocide or attempt a genocide, the good idea is to take the cell phones away from your people, because they were videotaping themselves and bragging about how they're killing civilians and blowing up apartments and cars with women and children. And there was a whole documentary film that came out of that, because once these two brigades got wiped out by the Russian army that came south, broke through, various ambushes came. The Georgians were trying to blow up the tunnels from North Ossetia to South Ossetia, but they failed to do that. Their special forces teams failed to do that. They were destroyed. The tunnels were open. The Russian army came charging through, which nobody expected to happen, because Medvedev was in charge. The Russian force that was sitting in the Caucasus was a third-echelon force—old equipment, not the best training—and the Russian army at that time didn't have the best training either, overall. And it came charging down and bulldozed its way to Tskhinvali to save the population. And the interesting thing that happened was one of the leading officers was saying—as they were driving down, because these two Georgian brigades were leading the charge—they were just exterminating everybody. And just to understand, South Ossetia had a population of about 40,000 people. We're not talking about a huge population. The soldiers—there was an article written by one of the officers in the leading BMPs—he said, "We could see a church off in the distance, and the cross started to glow, and an image came down from the cross, and a woman was walking toward us out of that light, walking by us and blessing us as we were going by—the Virgin Mary." And that motivated him quite a bit. #M2 So that's the story of the Russian soldiers going through and into South Ossetia. #M3 -- 3 of 18 -- The very first, the tip point of the Russian counterattack—so, you know, they got as far as Gori, and partially Gori was saved. Gori is maybe like 35, I guess about 35, almost 40 or 50 kilometers away from Tbilisi, the edge of Tbilisi. And Gori was saved because the Russian army was there, because the South Ossetians were coming through and then counter-killing Georgians as revenge for this offense. So the Russian army was there and kept the peace before they pulled back out. A friend of mine was telling me—and he's Georgian, living in Tbilisi—that when the Russian army was in Gori, the Saakashvili government threw in a bunch of conscripts that hadn't even gotten their training yet. So these guys were new. First day in training, they just gave them rifles and threw them against the Russian army. Well, predictably, what happened was they looked at the Russian tanks, they looked at the BMPs—well, actually, they didn’t have any BMPs, but there were still the real transports, the armored vehicles. They threw down their rifles and ran away. Again, these are guys who, for the first time, are holding a rifle and are sent into combat against veterans. Predictably, this isn’t going to turn out well. And they ran to Tbilisi, screaming, “The Russians are coming!” They said, you know, half the people were packing up their things to run, and half the people were pulling out Russian flags because they hated Saakashvili, and they saw that the Russians were going to come and remove Saakashvili. Unfortunately, the Russian army didn't come to Tbilisi; it stopped at Gori. So there were a lot of very upset people after that. And Saakashvili lost power, I think, within a year and a half or so—two years after that, around 2010 or so. Yeah. And when he was leaving, when he lost power—because there were several videos that came out. First of all, before that, a video came out of the massacres that his forces were committing. Basically, the FSB came through and just picked up the cell phones off the dead guys, hacked them, pulled their videos off of them, and just made a documentary out of their own words, out of their own actions. It's hard to deny who is doing what to whom from that. Secondly, videos started coming out right before the elections. The Georgian government changed from being a presidential republic to being a parliamentary republic. And Saakashvili decided that because his presidential second term was up, his party would win the elections and he would be the perpetual prime minister with the real power, because the president would now just be a figurehead. So from here on down, "I'll be prime minister for life." Well, right before the elections happened, a bunch of videos came out showing physical and sexual torture in the prisons in Georgia. At that time, probably about 7% of the population was in prison. He threw people in prison for disavowing anything. It's one way to make a law-and-order state, but they were being tortured and abused. And all of that came pouring out, and his party lost big time. So he lost power. In his little revenge, the first thing he did was start giving out citizenship to everybody. I mean, I'm talking about—you come in with any kind of ID, and in 20 minutes, you're walking out a brand new citizen of Georgia. So Africans, Chinese, and others in Tbilisi who were either working there or visiting. But that's a minor issue. -- 4 of 18 -- The big problem was in Adjara, where he gave it out to the Turks, who then brought in their families, their extended families. And now you have problems—you have ethnic problems in Adjara. The Turks are almost half the population in Adjara, and it has now gotten to the point where they're screaming at the Orthodox Georgians, "Get off our land." About a year, year and a half ago, you had Erdoğan in Rize, which is a city further west in Turkey itself, also on the coast, giving a speech. He said, "You know, I'm in Rize, I'm looking over at Batumi. This is all our land." I mean, that's a government head already putting out a direct claim on the province of another nation. And the only thing that's keeping the Turks out of Georgia is Russia, because there's no way in hell Russia is going to allow the Turks to annex Georgia. #M2 Are you really worried that that might be on the Turkish