GEORGIA: Russia’s Conspiracy Theories & more – 6th Mar 2025

Gamarjobat from Gracia! This is the Rorshok Georgia Update from the 6th of March twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Georgia.

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service shared a propaganda article on their official website about the attempts of Brussels to pull back Georgia to Western orbit and keep its influence in the South Caucasus. The article says that one of the ways the EU is trying to achieve this is by paying pro-European protesters who have been demonstrating non-stop for over a hundred days, 120 Euros a day.

The Intelligence Service also alleges that the EU is pushing four major opposition parties, who received a parliamentary mandate in last year's elections, to unite against the Georgian Dream or the Kotsebi. It also mentions that if the Georgian ruling party blocks the EU’s financial channels, cash to support pro-European demonstrations will be smuggled from the EU's embassy in Armenia.

Speaking of Georgia and Russia, on Friday, the 28th, Russia’s National Institute for Development of Communications released an annual ranking of sixteen post-soviet countries that are the most and least friendly to Russia.

According to the list, the top three countries that are the most friendly towards Russia include the occupied regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The remaining one is Belarus.

Unsurprisingly, the unfriendly part of the list is occupied by Baltic states: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and, of course, Ukraine. Moldova, whose break-away territory Transnistria is a Russian satellite, is also on the list of unfriendly nations.

Georgia ranked 11th on the list and was the only one with the status of a relatively friendly country, which it also received last year. However, its friendliness rating did increase slightly.

Since we mentioned the Baltic States. On Monday, the 3rd, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia banned eighty-three Georgian officials, including MPs, judges, prosecutors, and police officers, from entering their countries.

Lithuania cited human rights violations, including the wrongful arrest of journalist Mzia Amaglobeli, who went on a thirty-eight-day-long hunger strike. Latvia and Estonia followed suit, expanding their own blacklists.

The Baltic states say they support pro-European Georgians who have been protesting for months against the government’s actions. They accuse the ruling party of violating the constitution, civil rights, and international commitments.

Next Up. On Monday, the 3rd, the Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe, issued an urgent opinion on Georgia’s new protest laws. The new laws ban covering faces during demonstrations, increase fines to unreasonable levels, extend administrative detention from fifteen to sixty days, and prohibit indoor protests without the permission of the building's owner.

The Commission criticized the rushed process, lack of input outside of the ruling party, and vague legal language that grants excessive power to authorities. It warned that the harsh penalties could limit freedom of assembly.

The Commission urged the government to reconsider the laws, adjust punishments, and ensure legal clarity and protections against abuse. Without changes, the laws could violate international human rights standards and severely restrict basic freedoms.

Located in the central-western region, in the town of Chiatura, Georgian Manganese, the city’s main employer, partially halted operation several months ago, citing financial difficulties. However, it promised to pay all the affected workers 60% of their monthly wages until the work resumed.

Demonstrators say the company has not met this obligation and continues to extract and export manganese while leaving wages unpaid. Protestors are demanding that the government take over the mine's management, implement reforms, create a fund for children's development from mining revenues, and establish free local transportation. They also seek action on ecological issues linked to mining practices. If their demands are not met, the miners warn they will escalate their protests.

There has been a new development in the case of the Azerbaijani journalist Afghan Sadygov, which we covered in previous episodes. On Friday, the 28th, The European Court of Human Rights prohibited his extradition from Georgia to Azerbaijan while his case is pending in the court.

Sadygov went to Georgia to flee prosecution from Azerbaijan. He has been in detention in Georgia since August twenty twenty-four at Azerbaijan’s request. He was on a hunger strike for 161 days to protest his persecution.

Sadigov, known for his outspoken criticism of the Azerbaijani government, has been a target of political persecution due to his work. The Social Justice Center, which has been advocating for his release, argues that his extradition would put him at high risk of human rights violations in Azerbaijan, including torture.

Following this ruling, Sadigov decided to end his hunger strike, though his health condition remains concerning.

According to the newspaper The Economist, Georgia’s Democracy Index worsened in twenty twenty-four. It scored 4.70 out of ten, ranking ninety-fourth, down from eighty-ninth place in twenty twenty-three. Key components of the rating include electoral process and pluralism, government functioning, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.

Georgia is among the countries with the most significant democratic decline, alongside Qatar, Kuwait, Tunisia, and Bangladesh. In contrast, Norway ranked 1st on the list.

The report highlights Russia's indirect influence on Georgia’s politics, controversial laws, such as the foreign agent law and the October parliamentary elections, which were marred by irregularities and protests, deepening tensions between the government and the opposition.

Shifting gears, on Thursday, the 27th, The EU launched a new project called Resilient, Engaged, Active Civil Society for Transformation or REACT, with a two-year run and a budget of 1,500,000 Euros.

The goal of the project is to strengthen local civil society across Georgia’s regions, boost democratic governance, and get more people involved in decision-making. It will also focus on making local organizations more sustainable, especially financially, and improve how they communicate with the public.

REACT will work with 500 groups, 3,000 citizens, and fifty businesses, offering grants to support local initiatives, crowdfunding, and corporate social responsibility projects.

An International journalistic investigation coordinated by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and conducted by over thirty journalists revealed an operation of a scam call center that was located just 500 meters or 1,600 feet away from Georgia’s State Security Service building in Tbilisi.

According to the report, the call center, run by A.K. Group, scammed at least 35 million dollars from victims in Europe and Canada between twenty twenty-two and twenty twenty-five. The company, led by thirty-six-year-old Meri Shotadze and her associate Akaki Kevkhishvili, managed a multilingual team of young Georgians who carried out investment scams worldwide. Employees called themselves scammers and flaunted luxury lifestyles in private conversations. Some of them earned over 20,000 dollars a month, and their employers frequently held competitions for prizes like iPhones and BMWs.

Poland has started deporting Georgian citizens as part of its crackdown on crime. Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced the move on Twitter, sharing a video of border police escorting illegal Georgian migrants onto a plane.

On Wednesday, the 5th, authorities deported seventeen Georgians. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jacek Dobrzyński said that while Poland is a tolerant country, it won’t tolerate crime—whether it’s petty theft, drug-related offenses, or organized crime.

The deported individuals, all men aged between twenty-four and fifty-eight, were arrested from different regions across Poland. Officials say these deportations will continue as they work to dismantle criminal networks.

On a similar note. On Sunday, the 2nd, a group of people attacked Misha Andghuladze, a famous Georgian Comedian, in Hague, the Netherlands, in front of a Georgian restaurant, where he held an event.

Rumors on Facebook suggested that the attack was due to Andghuladze calling the Kotsebi supporters Russians, but he denied this, saying it was a deliberate lie. He speculated that his previous jokes about religion might have been the real cause.

He described the attack as premeditated, saying someone had ordered it, and a video was taken as proof. The local police are investigating the case.

Want to check out the footage? Link in the show notes.

Closing this edition, relations between Georgian and Ukraine remain tense. On Thursday, the 27th, Ukraine’s Ministry of Sports decided to strip Kakha Kaladze, Tbilisi’s mayor and General secretary of the Kotsebi, of his title of Master of Sports of Ukraine. Kaladze played for Kiev's Dynamo FC from nineteen ninety-eight to two thousand one. During his time there, he helped the team win the Ukrainian national championship three times before moving to Milan. He still owns two apartments in Kiev, but is currently sanctioned by Ukraine.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Nakhvamdis!