“Logically, if a Russian citizen comes here and owns a business, maybe Putin will be more careful and less likely to invade and bomb as he did in 2008. His reason for starting a war is always protecting Russian-speaking citizens, and if they have businesses here and he destroys those businesses, I don’t think it’s right, and the very logic of him bombing his own people will be less acceptable,” Davit Razmadze, Chairman of the Gori Municipality Council from Georgian Dream said in an interview with the local TV channel, TV Monitoring.
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In 2022, about 15,000 Russian companies were established in Georgia, which is 16 times more than the 2021 figure. 95% of the companies are individual enterprises. As of 2022, there were a total of 22,400 Russian companies in Georgia, and 66% of them were registered after the start of the war in Ukraine.
Last year, Russian citizens opened more than 60,000 accounts in Georgian banks, and the amount of money placed in their accounts and deposits increased almost 4 times compared to 2021, reaching 2.8 billion GEL.
On May 10 of this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin canceled his June 21, 2019 ban on direct flights between Russia and Georgia. The visa requirements for Georgian citizens, which have been in effect since 2000, have also been stripped.
Russian airline Azimuth and Georgia's Georgian Airways have been flying between Moscow and Tbilisi since the end of May. At first, the airlines operated one flight a day, but since July 5, Azimuth flies twice a day, and since July 6, Georgian Airways has added four new flights per week. Another Russian airline Red Wings performs Moscow-Kutaisi flights three times a week, and Sochi-Tbilisi twice a week.
The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) has issued permission for operating 284 weekly flights between the cities of Russia and Georgia. This concerns flights to Tbilisi, Batumi, and Kutaisi from Vladikavkaz, Makhachkala, Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, and other cities. In order to launch new flights, Russian airlines must also obtain the permission from Georgian Civil Aviation Agency.
