Day: December 18, 2025
In recent months, the European Union’s (EU) policy toward the South Caucasus has increasingly come under scrutiny. Although official Brussels continues to emphasize its commitment to peace, stability, and cooperation, the actual steps taken and the documents adopted often point in the opposite direction. This contradiction becomes especially evident in the context of Azerbaijan–Armenia relations, where new realities are emerging after years of conflict. Instead of embracing these developments and supporting genuine normalization, the EU’s position appears inconsistent, selective, and at times openly biased.
Abkhaz students in Russia
Students from Abkhazia studying at Russian universities are being asked to register for military service. Formally, this is permitted because many hold dual Russian and Abkhaz citizenship.
The Abkhaz authorities, however, disagree and say they are developing legal mechanisms to rule out the conscription of Abkhaz citizens into the Russian army.
In 2025, there has been a rise in cases where Abkhaz students at some Russian universities are being forced to register for military service under threat of expulsion.
In response, the leadership of Abkhazia’s foreign and defence ministries held a joint meeting to coordinate their position and adopt legal measures.
According to the foreign ministry’s press service, the ministers discussed possible solutions, including measures under the “Agreement on the Regulation of Dual Citizenship Issues between the Republic of Abkhazia and the Russian Federation.”
The main argument is that these young people belong to Abkhazia’s own mobilisation reserve and should be registered for military service there, not in Russia.
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Abkhaz students in Russia
A seminar on “Promoting the Use of Inclusive Language in the Media” was jointly organized by the UN Office in Azerbaijan and the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population, with participation from media representatives, NGOs working with persons with disabilities, members of the UN Communication and Inclusion Working Groups, and experts, Azernews reports.
Calls to rethink Georgia’s education reform
Leading Western scholars and professors are urging Georgia’s government to halt and rethink its higher education reform, warning that it will not resolve existing problems but instead deepen them and increase state control over the education sector.
“We agree that Georgia’s higher education system has long suffered from a number of problems, including:
- A lack of resources, with Georgia’s government spending on higher education standing at 0.3% of GDP in 2025;
- Low salaries for lecturers, who are forced to work two or three jobs to support their families;
- The near absence of state-funded research institutes and scientific laboratories;
- Graduate unemployment each year, which drives large-scale emigration abroad.
The measures you propose will strengthen state control over the higher education sector. Governance will be transferred to rectors and administrators who will be accountable to the government. University autonomy, and with it academic staff control over curricula and study programmes, will be significantly weakened.
University budgets will be cut further, and the reorganisation will make it easier to dismiss professors who hold alternative views.
This ‘reform’ would close the last remaining space in Georgia that is open to healthy dissent.
A well-functioning university system that supports critical thinking, self-governance, academic freedom, properly funded research opportunities and international exchanges is vital to the growth of Georgia’s national economy.
We, international researchers from universities around the world, are also concerned by other measures taken by your government, which have led to the imprisonment of professors and students for peacefully defending their rights.
The proposed concept of national higher education reform will not only reverse Georgia’s democratic progress but also limit the future prospects of the citizens you were elected to represent.
Higher education provides the state with active citizens and skilled professionals who, together with workers, ensure the country’s survival and prosperity in an increasingly competitive global environment.
We urge the government to reconsider this educationally harmful proposal and to engage in dialogue with all stakeholders in Georgia’s higher education system, in order to develop a genuine reform that improves the lives of Georgian citizens and their children,” the letter says. It was signed by 65 professors and addressed to Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze.
Irakli Kobakhidze, who represents the ruling Georgian Dream party, announced the planned reform on 16 October 2025. He said the current education system does not meet modern challenges or standards and argued that Georgia must set an “ambitious goal” of providing students with the same level of education as abroad.
Independent experts describe the proposed reform as repressive changes in the education sector.
Calls to rethink Georgia’s education reform