The two-year contract between the government of Georgia and the Russian energy giant Gazprom on natural gas transit from Russia to Armenia expired on December 31, 2018 (Georgia Today, January 21, 2019). And talks are now ongoing about extending or renegotiating this arrangement. Tbilisi and Moscow had reached the previous deal on gas transit to Armenia back in January 2017, after long and difficult negotiations (see EDM, January 19, 2017). In December 2015, the then–minister of energy, Kakhi Kaladze (now the mayor of the Georgian capital),…
