Over 20,000 People Crossed the Russian-Georgian Border Daily
Russian customs service reports record traffic, while Georgia's Interior Ministry denies that only Russian citizens fleeing mobilization are crossing.
Russian customs service reports record traffic, while Georgia's Interior Ministry denies that only Russian citizens fleeing mobilization are crossing.
The Verkhni Lars border crossing between Russia and Georgia has seen record passenger flow in recent days, with data from Russian and Georgian authorities revealing different interpretations of the same event. The Russian Federal Customs Service issued a statement on the evening of August 18, stating that more than 20,000 passengers crossed the checkpoint in a single day, accompanied by a record number of private vehicles.
As reported by Meduza, the Russian side notes that similar dynamics have been observed for several days. According to their data, on August 15 and 16, more than 19,000 people passed through the crossing daily, and current figures significantly exceed those from the same periods in previous years. Russian authorities attribute the increased traffic to a high intensity of tourist flow.
Georgia's Ministry of Internal Affairs responded on August 19 at 4:00 PM Moscow time, calling inaccurate the information that spread through media and social networks that 20,000 Russian citizens had crossed the border in the last 24 hours. According to Georgian data, during that period, specifically from 4:00 PM on August 18 to 4:00 PM on August 19, just over 16,000 citizens of various countries crossed the border at Verkhni Lars.
Of that number, 7,880 people headed towards Georgia, while 8,406 went towards Russia. Meduza notes that these figures are broadly comparable to the statistics from the Russian customs service, but it is not clear from the Russian statement how many people traveled in which direction. The Georgian side thus suggests that this is not exclusively an exodus of Russian citizens.
Queues at the border between Russia and Georgia are traditional, partly because the crossing is occasionally closed due to adverse weather conditions. For instance, on August 13, the crossing was temporarily closed for that very reason. According to posts by users in Telegram channels dedicated to Verkhni Lars, during the period from August 15 to 19, morning waits in queues were approximately three to five hours, while in the evening the border was crossed much faster.
By the evening of August 19, as Meduza reports, these channels no longer recorded major congestion. Although a narrative has emerged in public about a mass departure of Russians to Georgia due to rumors of a possible autumn mobilization, official data from both sides do not provide a clear answer about the motives of travelers, and the Georgian ministry explicitly denies claims that it is exclusively Russian citizens.
