From the article, the emphasis being mine:
We may refer to both the country and the state by the same name, but the homonymy of Georgia and Georgia doesn't exist in Russian. The soldiers storming the border this week might say they were advancing into Gruzia, as opposed to the American region [sic]—which they would pronounce as Gee-OR-gee-ah.
Many Russians may pronounce
Georgia, USA, that way, but some Russians have enough exposure to mentions of the state, especially given today's communications and media technologies and their offerings, to be able and likely to pronounce
Georgia as natives of the state do. Some Russians have even seen
Gone with the Wind and heard “Rainy Night in Georgia.” Some may have heard “California Dreamin'” and “Hotel California,” and may know that Arnold Schwartzenegger takes a lot of teasing for ending his pronunciation of his state's name with “
gee-ah.”