Russia is accused of interfering in Georgia and carrying out anti-American propaganda

Tbilisi and Moscow have exchanged sharp rhetoric over the results of Georgia's Oct. 26 parliamentary election, which saw thousands take to the streets to protest the victory of the ruling Georgian Dream party.

Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili, who is allied with the pro-Western opposition, accused Russia of conducting a “special operation” to “distort” election results in favor of the ruling party, which is widely seen as increasingly pro-Kremlin and authoritarian.

In response, Russia denied involvement and described the United States and the European Union as destabilizing powers. In doing so, Moscow's network of officials and state media engaged in disinformation and conspiracy theories, even claiming to a state-controlled news outlet that the United States and Ukraine had secretly deployed snipers to fire on protesters in Tbilisi, escalating the situation.

Zourabichvili also told Reuters that the Russian “methodology and support most likely of the Russian FSB [Federal Security Service] Guys are showing up in this election.”

“The propaganda used before the election … was a direct reproduction, a copy-paste, of the Russian clips and videos used at the time [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s choice,” said Zurabishvili, whose role as president is largely ceremonial.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Russian interference in the election and accused Zurabishvili of “trying to destabilize the situation.”

Peskov had previously claimed that it was the European countries that “tried to influence the outcome of this vote.”

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called Zurabishvili a “puppet president” who “rejected the election and violated the constitution by calling for a coup.”

“The common practice in such cases is impeachment and arrest,” Medvedev wrote on X.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the US of “neo-colonialism” after US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller warned that the Georgian government would face “consequences” if it “does not reverse its anti-democratic actions and return to the euro”. -Atlantic Way.”

Russian state media went a step further and spread a conspiracy theory that the West wanted to foment violence in Georgia.

“Westerners will stop at nothing in their attempts to unbalance the domestic political situation in Georgia after the October 26 elections and trigger another color revolution,” Russian state news agency Sputnik said, citing unnamed “sources in the region “. “

“Snipers trained in Ukraine are arriving in the republic to organize provocations during mass protests,” Russian state news agency Tass reported on Monday, citing a “regional official familiar with the matter.”

The term “color revolution” was widely adopted after Ukraine's 2004–2005 Orange Revolution was sparked by a corruption-ridden presidential runoff in which pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych emerged victorious.

Russia typically uses the term when it accuses the West of orchestrating moves to destabilize or topple governments favored by the Kremlin.

In the months leading up to Georgia's parliamentary election, Russian state media published reports that the U.S. wanted to foment a color revolution or a “Ukrainian-style coup.”

In July, Russian state news agency Sputnik quoted an anonymous Russian intelligence official who claimed that U.S. authorities were planning a “holy sacrifice” among protest participants.

The disinformation narrative in Sputnik's report reflects a well-known Kremlin conspiracy theory that dates back to the 2013-14 pro-Europe rallies in Ukraine, when the Russians claimed that U.S.-trained Georgian “mercenaries” were responsible for shooting protesters in Kiev In 2014, he was responsible for demonstrations on the city's Maidan Nezalezhnosti, widely known as Maidan or Independence Square.

Russian state media and senior officials, including Putin, falsely claimed that the US had organized protests in Ukraine to encourage a coup.

This narrative included a conspiracy theory that Victoria Nuland, an American diplomat and former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, had ordered “American specialists” to lead the “snipers who shot people on the Maidan.”

As protests continue in Georgia, the US and EU have joined calls from international and local observers to investigate alleged electoral violations.

On Thursday, Georgian authorities launched an investigation into election fraud allegations.

The EU and the US have repeatedly warned Georgia about what they call “democratic backsliding” and have even frozen financial support to the country's government, instead focusing on supporting civil society initiatives.

In June, Georgian Dream representatives signed a law requiring nongovernmental organizations that receive at least 20% of their funding from abroad to designate themselves as foreign agents “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.”

In response, Brussels paused Georgia's EU accession process on the grounds that the foreign agents law was incompatible with EU membership.

Georgia's opposition has called Tbilisi's new foreign agents law a “Russian law,” a reference to a similar 2012 law in Russia that was used to silence civil society and independent media.

The EU also warned that it could freeze visa-free travel with Georgia if it deems the parliamentary election to be neither free nor fair.