"Prospects of normalizing our relations with Russia look good"
About this Quote
“Prospects of normalizing our relations with Russia look good” is diplomatic language doing what diplomacy does best: lowering the temperature without promising the stove won’t burn you again. Coming from Eduard Shevardnadze, it carries the weight of a statesman who lived through empire, collapse, and the messy afterlife of both. “Normalize” isn’t a warm word. It’s a clinical one, implying the relationship is currently abnormal, damaged, maybe even dangerous, and that the goal isn’t intimacy but manageability.
The phrase “prospects…look good” is equally careful. It’s optimism padded with plausible deniability. Shevardnadze isn’t announcing a breakthrough; he’s signaling to multiple audiences that a breakthrough is thinkable. To Moscow, it’s an invitation that preserves Russian dignity: no blame is spoken aloud. To domestic listeners and nervous neighbors, it’s reassurance that Georgia (or the post-Soviet state he represents) can pursue stability without surrendering sovereignty. The sentence is a bridge built from conditional verbs.
Context matters because “normal” in the post-Soviet space is always contested. For Russia, normalization often meant restoring influence; for smaller states, it meant surviving next to a power that treated their independence as a negotiable concept. Shevardnadze’s genius was reading that asymmetry and speaking in phrases that can be read two ways: a thaw for the public, a tactical pause for the hardliners. It’s not naive hope; it’s risk management disguised as good news.
The phrase “prospects…look good” is equally careful. It’s optimism padded with plausible deniability. Shevardnadze isn’t announcing a breakthrough; he’s signaling to multiple audiences that a breakthrough is thinkable. To Moscow, it’s an invitation that preserves Russian dignity: no blame is spoken aloud. To domestic listeners and nervous neighbors, it’s reassurance that Georgia (or the post-Soviet state he represents) can pursue stability without surrendering sovereignty. The sentence is a bridge built from conditional verbs.
Context matters because “normal” in the post-Soviet space is always contested. For Russia, normalization often meant restoring influence; for smaller states, it meant surviving next to a power that treated their independence as a negotiable concept. Shevardnadze’s genius was reading that asymmetry and speaking in phrases that can be read two ways: a thaw for the public, a tactical pause for the hardliners. It’s not naive hope; it’s risk management disguised as good news.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
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