Salome Zourabichvili, Georgia's fifth president, is on a mission in Washington to make her country matter to President Trump and his incoming team’s "America First" foreign policy.

And she’s using personal relationships to gain access that was largely blocked in a Biden administration that rigidly stuck to protocol.

“I couldn't get to have even a phone call with the vice president when she was elected,” said Zourabichvili, who is Georgia’s first female president.

For a valuable few minutes of face time with Trump in December, Zourabichvili relied on French President Emanuel Macron to organize an introduction on the sidelines of the rededication ceremony of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Her message is that the U.S. should push back on Russia using Georgia “as a playground.” Russian forces have occupied 20 percent of the country since an invasion in 2008. And Moscow is accused of helping fuel a political crisis in the country.

Mass protests have taken place for more than two months, demonstrating against the Kremlin-aligned ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD). The ruling government has cut off accession talks to the European Union, deepened ties with China, and held high-level contacts with Iran.

“I had the chance to tell him that this was a strategic region that cannot be forgotten by the United States,” Zourabichvili said last week, meeting with reporters in Washington, D.C.

Did he seem receptive to that message?

“Well, yes, in the sense that he knows Georgia, he has been to Georgia. He enjoyed having been to Georgia. So it was not an abstract........

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