Georgia-Russia

Overview

Georgia-Russia is a regional submarine cable system connecting Georgia and Russia across the eastern Black Sea corridor. Spanning 433 kilometres, it links one Georgian landing point with two locations on the Russian Black Sea coast, providing a direct undersea connection between the two neighbouring countries.

Route and Landings

In Georgia, the cable lands at Poti, a port city on the eastern Black Sea coast.

In Russia, the cable lands at two points: Dzhubga and Sochi, both situated along the Russian Black Sea shoreline.

Ownership and Operators

The Georgia-Russia cable is jointly owned by three companies: FOPTNET, GEO-METRIA, and Rostelecom. Rostelecom is Russia's national telecommunications operator and one of the largest providers of digital services in the country.

Status and Timeline

The cable entered service in 2000 and has been in operation ever since, providing undersea connectivity between Georgia and Russia for over two decades.

Regional Context

The Georgia-Russia cable operates in a corridor that has seen a number of subsequent additions. The Caucasus Cable System, which also serves Georgia, entered service in 2008, while the Kardesa cable is planned for readiness in 2027, indicating continued investment in Georgian submarine connectivity. On the Russian side, more recent systems such as the Far East Submarine Cable System (2016), Polar Express (2022), and the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky–Anadyr cable (2022) serve entirely different corridors along Russia's Pacific and Arctic coasts, underscoring the geographic breadth of Russia's submarine cable infrastructure. The Georgia-Russia cable stands apart as a short, focused Black Sea link predating most of these systems.

Based on 111 ping tests conducted over the past 60 days, the cable records an average round-trip latency of 136.3 milliseconds, with a best recorded measurement of 114.7 ms.

Strategic Role

At 433 kilometres, Georgia-Russia provides a direct and relatively short undersea path across the eastern Black Sea, connecting one Georgian coastal city with two Russian landing points. This arrangement concentrates Georgian-Russian undersea connectivity through the Poti landing on the Georgian side, with traffic distributed between Dzhubga and Sochi on the Russian side. The cable supports bilateral connectivity between Georgia and Russia and remains one of the earlier infrastructure links established between the two countries in the submarine cable era.