A comparative study on Ukraine and Georgia energy politics and their geopolitical impact on the EU’s energy landscape

The war in Ukraine has accelerated Europe’s shift away from dependence on Russian energy altering the continent’s energy landscape and its interrelated energy geopolitics. As traditional gas transit routes through Ukraine diminish, alternative corridors, particularly those passing through Georgia and the Caucasus could gain strategic significance in the EU’s energy realignment The presentstudy employs a comparative approach to assess how Russia’s geopolitical actions, such as the war in Georgia (2008), the annexation of Crimea (2014), and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2022), have affected EU energy dynamics. The comparative approach employed in this paper enables readers to understand how energy is a key geopolitical aspect to consider in any policy assessment. This paper adopts a multidimensional approach that integrates an initial Bibliometric Systematic Literature Review (B-SLR) to capture the state-of-the-art and the need to fill this gap with policy, economic data, and geopolitical analysis, offering new insights into the dearth of comparative studies between the two countries. Overall, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of how Russia’s use of energy as a power tool might shape the EU’s energy policy strategies and future energy geopolitical scenarios.