The city giving Russians ultimatum after they escape Putin’s Ukraine war draft

Georgians are turning up the heat on the thousands of Russians who relocated to their country after Vladimir Putin announced a general mobilisation at the end of September to beef up his country’s army fighting in Ukraine.

The large group of Russians is finding an increasingly upset local population, expressing discontent through “crude” graffiti on walls and ultimatum messages on leaflets.

The anti-Russian sentiment is particularly strong in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, which is believed to have become home to more than 110,000 people from the neighbouring country since Moscow ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Appearing on the BBC’s Global News podcast, journalist Vitaly Shevchenko said: “There is an extraordinary amount of extreme anti-Russian graffiti scrawled all over Tbilisi – and it is crude.”

The correspondent said some of them read “Kill Russians”, and “Russians not welcomed here, good or bad”.

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Pictures from the Georgian capital also show even more expletive graffitis, with many reading “f*** Russia” while another said, misspelling the word Russia to refer to the Z symbol associated with the Ukraine conflict: “Ruzzia is a terrorist state.”

The expert went on to explain: “Now, in wartime language, good Russians are the ones who don’t support President Putin’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.”

While in Tbilisi, it was difficult to escape thoughts and references to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he continued.

Mr Shevchenko said: “Reminders of it are to be found in the most unusual of places, such as restaurants and bars.

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“In one of them, I saw leaflets in Russian addressed to Russians, which said: ‘Every single Russian bears responsibility for this war.

“‘While you are having fun here, your army [is] pillaging and raping in Ukraine. So if you couldn’t protest against this in Russia, do it here. If you don’t agree with it, you are not welcome here’.”

Georgia has been chosen by many Russians as a refuge thanks to the use of their language being widespread, the fact it can be reached without needing to get on a plane and that it doesn’t require Russia’s nationals to apply for a visa.

The upset created by the large influx of young Russians trying to escape the military draft may be linked not just to locals widely supporting Ukraine in the ongoing conflict but also to Georgian housing and social infrastructure being strained as a result of immigration.

Moreover, Tbilisi is still reeling from the five-day war in August 2008, after which Russia established a military presence in the self-proclaimed Russian-backed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

While the ruling Dream Party in Georgia is seen as Moscow-leaning, particularly given the fact it refuses to both sanction Russia and arm Ukraine, polls carried out in early 2022 for NDI by CRRC Georgia show the large majority of Georgians believe Russia is a major threat to its neighbours and support both Ukrainian people and their government.

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