Pro-Kremlin actors fuel anti-Turkish attitudes in Georgia, new study shows

In Georgia, narratives regarding the threat of “Turkish expansionism” have intensified in the past few months, found a new study conducted by Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) of the Atlantic Council. Pro-Kremlin actors, like media outlets and far-right Facebook pages, have increasingly characterized Turkey as an emerging existential threat for Georgia.

Georgia’s ties with Turkey, one of the great powers of the region, are exemplary and accelerating as their interests increasingly intertwine. Turkey remains Georgia’s “strategic partner,” more recently cooperating over the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) railway, which has promoted trade and travel by rail from Asia to Europe, bypassing Armenia and avoiding Russian territory.

Georgian-Turkish relations are based on common economic and strategic interests. Georgia’s foreign policymakers see Turkey as a link to the EU and NATO and a vital trading partner. Of all its immediate neighbors — Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, and Turkey, Turkey is the only country with which Georgia has demarcated 100 percent of its border. The issue of borders pose a severe threat to Azerbaijani-Georgian relations, more recently rising tensions in David Gareja Monastery Complex.

Turkey, which is Georgia’s largest trading partner, represents an important balance to Russian aspirations in the region. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Turkish-Georgian relationship has attracted significant attention from pro-Kremlin actors. “As a means of spoiling this close relationship, Kremlin allies have pushed narratives about the threat of “Turkish expansionism” in Georgia for several years,” reads the study.

The DFRLab identified several recurring anti-Turkey narratives among pro-Kremlin Russian and Georgian media outlets and Facebook pages.

“Among other claims, these sources alleged that Turkey sought to conquer or fracture Georgia’s southwestern Adjara region, that Turkish investors are taking over the Georgian economy, and that Georgian cities have become overrun with Turkish tourists. These narratives all factored into a broader effort to fuel anti-Turkish sentiment in the country,” found the study.

Among others, one of the particularly prominent conspiracy theory concerned the status of Georgia’s southwestern Autonomous Republic of Adjara, a semi-autonomous region that borders Turkey.

According to the conspiracy theory, Russia does not plan to extend the Treaty of Kars — which delineated the borders between the now-former Soviet Union and Turkey — after 2021; as a result, according to the conspiracy, Turkey would seize the city of Batumi when the Treaty expires. In reality, however, the 100-year-old treaty has no expiration date.

Another anti-Turkish narrative appeared on the newly established Georgian online media -tvalsazrisi.ge, a site that was created on April 30, 2019, with no information on its “About” page. It said that Turkey had announced its support to help Georgia’s Adjara region gain complete autonomy (i.e. independence from Georgia) in response to oppression of the region’s minority Muslim population.

The study has found that tvalsazrisi.ge translated a June 6, 2019, article from the Russian media outlet Экспресс газета (“Express Newspaper”) with the headline, “Georgian Muslims are ready to gain independence by taking up arms” into Georgian.

The DFRLab has also identified a YouTube channel that was also created recently and serves the purpose of demonizing Turkey.

According to DFRLab, on June 23, 2019, the channel, “RusArm NEWS” dedicated a video to “Georgia’s Turkish problem.” The narrator in the video claimed that “[t]here is no Georgia anymore. Turkey is seizing the region from Georgia.” citing Express Newspaper as well as the Kremlin-owned outlet Sputnik, as its sources.

Self-described Russian daily news platform, the channel had more than 22,000 subscribers, which, according to the study, was significant, as the channel had only been active for two weeks at the time of the analysis.

“In total, the channel had only published 12 videos thus far. Seven out of the 12 claimed that Turkey was occupying Georgia and that Georgians were pleading with Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene. Even at this early stage, it seemed that the YouTube channel was created to sow confusion on Turkey-Georgia relations, as well as on relations with Georgia’s other neighbors, including Armenia and Azerbaijan,” reads the DFRLab study.

The study has also shown that radical far-right Facebook pages that are known for anti-Western, homophobic, and xenophobic attitudes have actively disseminated the abovementioned article.

Another direction which the pro-Kremlin media outlets work on is positioning Turkey as a threat to the Georgian economy. Some sensational headlines, which saw a significant number of views include “Turkish Expansion: Who and Why is Really Buying Georgia,” with 24,852 views; “How Turks are occupying Georgia,” with over 9,200 views; “ and “Almost Turkish Georgia, or How Turks are Taking Control Adjara” with 29,420 views.

DFRLab scanned for mentions of the words “Турция” (“Turkey”) together with “Аджария” (“Adjara”) across online platforms in Russian to monitor the spread of the narrative about Turkey’s alleged ‘occupation’ of Georgia.

They have found that “from June 12, 2018, to July 7, 2019 — a one-year period — Sysomos [online analytics tool] registered 333 mentions of both terms together across all platforms, with a sharp increase in the number of mentions from June 2019 onward. In addition, the online analytics tool BuzzSumo showed that seven out of the eight most engaged articles containing the word “Adjara” in Russian during the period referred to the “Turkish occupation of the region.”

The DFRLab also scanned for mentions of the word “თურქები” (“Turkish people”) in Georgian across online platforms. It found that the mentions started to increase in November 2018 and have remained relatively high from that point onward. The analysis showed that seven out of the eight most engaged articles containing the phrase “Turkish people” discussed the Turkish people’s “takeover” of Georgia.

The spread of such narratives undoubtedly has the potential to fuel anti-Turkish sentiment in Georgia, “which would, in turn, distract the public’s attention from the looming threat of the Kremlin,” concludes the study.

Indeed, the Russian soft power machine works as hard as ever in Georgia, making sure that the country’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations get derailed somehow. Kremlin is trying hard to meddle in Georgia’s domestic and foreign policies and is succeeding to an extent. However, the small number of the Georgian population that is vulnerable to Russian propaganda is noticeably older, which gives the Kremlin a limited scope of action, as their current approach can be effective in the short-term.