Georgia issued the first permission to the Russian airline to resume flights

Georgia issued permission to the Russian airline Azimut for flights in its direction from May 17. This is the first Russian airline that has been allowed to fly to Georgia since 2019.

The Civil Aviation Agency of Georgia reported this on May 15.

There will be flights in the direction of Moscow — Tbilisi seven times a week. This Russian airline is not on the list of EU sanctions.

Economy Minister Levan Davitashvili stated that three Russian companies and one Georgian company submitted applications for direct flights between Georgia and Russia.

Air traffic between Russia and Georgia was suspended in the summer of 2019 at the initiative of the Russian Federation. The reason was the scandal surrounding the participation of the Russian delegation in the session of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy held in Georgia in June. Then the Russian deputy, member of the Communist Party Serhii Gavrilov opened the session of the assembly, sitting in the chair of the speaker of the Parliament of Georgia. The deputies blocked the tribune and actually disrupted the event. The opposition said that the Georgian authorities had committed an act of treason because they allowed into the country and gave an honorable place in the parliament a politician who supports the independence of South Ossetia and participated in the war against Georgians in Abkhazia in 1993.

• On May 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree and canceled the visa regime for Georgian citizens from May 15, 2023, and also canceled the ban on air transportation from Russia to Georgia, which had been in effect since June 2019. The Ministry of Transport of Russia has already announced that the carriers are preparing to resume flights and plan to operate seven direct flights from Moscow to Tbilisi and back every week.
• Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili called it a provocation and even convened the countryʼs Security Council. On the other hand, the Georgian government sees nothing wrong with resuming air traffic. They believe that this should be done for humanitarian reasons.
• Georgia has declared that it will not allow sanctioned airlines and planes into its airspace, the EU has warned it about this.