Giorgi Vashadze, one of the leaders of Georgia’s largest opposition coalition, regards the incumbent Georgian Dream (GD) government as a “double-faced” Kremlin agent: ostensibly committed to Western integration, but in reality deliberately sabotaging Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic future in favour of closer ties with Russia.

“They [GD] want to fool and manipulate people, through a machine of propaganda, to make at least a part of the Georgian population believe that Georgian Dream are still pro-Western, but really they’re distancing the country from the West,” the opposition politician said, laying down his position during a recent interview with bne IntelliNews, noting that sustained “strategic ambiguity” is key to GD’s actions.

Recent years have seen mounting allegations from Georgia’s predominantly pro-European civil society against the ruling party of orchestrating the country’s rapid authoritarian pivot away from the democratic values of the EU and US and towards illiberal Moscow and its allies.

Yet GD maintains that it is driving Georgia West. The party’s October 2024 general election campaign centred on the promise of “dignified, prosperous and peaceful” accession to the EU.

A month after the vote, however, the newly elected GD parliament broke this pledge when it froze membership negotiations with the European bloc.

Every night since, thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets across the country demanding a transfer of power and a return to the European path.

The GD government has launched a campaign of violence, intimidation, and repressive legislation in an effort to crush the pro-EU resistance movement, measures which have triggered widespread international condemnation, including from the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council (PACE) and the European Human Rights Commission, sanctions on top GD officials, and a rapidly deteriorating Georgia-EU relationship.

Vashadze argued GD is now deploying “psychological” repression using disinformation techniques developed in Russia and administered in Georgia with Kremlin help.

Russian hybrid weapon

GD’s U-turn away from Europe intensified an existing political crisis which ensued following Georgia’s disputed October parliamentary election, the results of which have been rejected by the entire pro-EU opposition, including Vashadze’s Unity-UNM coalition.

Speaking the day after the vote, the then-Georgian president and now opposition flag bearer, Salome Zourabichvili, declared that a “Russian special operation” helped rig the vote in GD’s favour.

Since then, Zourabichvili has warned that Moscow is using an “alternative hybrid strategy” to achieve near-costless domination in Georgia and beyond.

Vashadze supports this theory. He argued that Russian intelligence specially designed the “double-faced” GD party as a “weapon of hybrid war against Georgian national interests” – committed to EU integration in appearance but in practice steering the country deeper into Moscow’s sphere of influence.

The politician noted how 80% public support for EU accession in Georgia denies Russia strong grounds upon which to advance its propaganda campaign, necessitating a façade of pro-Westernism at the state level while the reorientation of the country takes place behind the scenes.

“In this reality your manipulative mechanisms need to be much more advanced in order to fool and brainwash people,” Vashadze explained, adding that the “hybrid war system” in action in Georgia is “state of the art”.

GD’s deceitful balancing act relies on a set of strong and varied tools, the opposition politician continued, “number one is, of course, propaganda and manipulation”.

“But from year to year,” said Vashadze, “it’s becoming harder and harder for GD to manipulate people.”

Hence GD’s recent transition to a strategy of psychological repression – essentially brainwashing – via the creation of a “fake reality”, the politician continued.

Fake reality

Typically associated with Peter Pomerantsev’s stint in a 00s Moscow TV newsroom, this technique is where authoritarian regimes spin numerous false narratives into a disorientating web of anti-truths, stifling reason and fact to ensure mass delirium, silence and eventual capitulation.

Vashadze believes forces in Moscow are actively assisting GD in rolling out this strategy, which he is adamant is “a Russian invention”.

“This does not mean they [the GD government] are receiving daily guidance, but there is definitely a group of experts or consultants who are helping them to navigate this environment,” he explained.

According to the opposition politician, the goal of the brainwashing technique in the Georgian context is not something long-term or strategic, but simply “to win the daily narrative”.

To do this, Vashadze explained, a handful of notorious GD hardliners disseminate fake narratives which dominate and saturate the information space.

This ensures the ruling party’s position at the helm of national discourse, able to steer discussion topics in line with their own interests, and essentially “occupy the minds” of the entire Georgian population in the process.

“It’s not that they want people to 100% believe what they are saying,” Vashadze stressed, in reference to GD’s favourite conspiracy that a subversive “deep state” network of foreign leaders is attempting to meddle in Georgian internal affairs.

What matters, the politician insisted, is the public’s sustained belief in the hypothetical possibility; “‘maybe the deep state exists, maybe it doesn’t’ – the concern is enough for GD to manipulate.”

The opposition politician further described how, as part of their brainwashing strategy, members of the ruling party “design lies” specifically to eclipse developments that signal a win for their opponents.

Vashadze gave the example of how, on the same day the US Senate adopted the MEGOBARI Act, a bipartisan bill mandating sanctions against GD officials, the GD majority parliament announced a new ban on Georgian opposition parties deemed “hostile” to the state.

Vashadze argued the party did this deliberately so as to redirect and monopolise the national debate; “The MEGOBARI Act is disappearing, and everyone is talking about party banning, including the pro-opposition TV channels,” the politician said.

It’s essential to disengage from this GD-spun, TV show-esque simulation and get “back to reality”, the politician stressed, warning that the opposition themselves are so “disorientated” that they too are ending up as vehicles for fake GD narratives.

Vashadze noted how GD’s policy of indifference towards the truth echoes that of top Kremlin mastermind Vladislav Surkov: by “questioning everything” and “drowning facts” in ambiguity the party aims to incite mass instability, frustration, and eventually apathy, forcing protesters, civil society, and opposition figures “to give up the fight”.

“Within this big cloud of frustration, the only organised power is Georgian Dream, and then people vote for Georgian Dream, that’s how this all works,” said Vashadze, building on earlier comments that the GD “regime ... relies on confused, tired, and defeated people”.

A promise is a promise

With their opponents distracted, GD are free to assure their own voters that the country continues to move toward European integration, not in the way the “Brussels bureaucracy” or the Georgian “radical opposition” are attempting to enforce via “blackmail and manipulation”, as the party’s line goes, but in the way that best suits “Georgian national interests” – dignity, sovereignty, and autonomy intact.

“Despite the fact that the European bureaucracy is still busy blackmailing Georgia and trying to return undemocratic forces [the previous UNM government] to power, we promise the public that our political team will cope with all challenges with dignity and that Georgia will meet the announced EU enlargement by 2030 better prepared than all candidate countries,” read a statement GD released on April 21, the 13^th anniversary of the party’s founding.

Limited propaganda? Limit democracy.

According to Vashadze, GD understands its propaganda “can’t work forever”.

The politician explains how, with each general election, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the ruling party to convince the required majority of Georgian voters that its still backs EU integration; the hypocrisy is now too blatant.

In the months of unrest since GD froze accession negotiations with the EU in November, Vashadze continued, the party has essentially “lifted the mask” altogether, shedding any “face of democracy” it had attempted to sustain over recent years in favour of an authoritarian and police-state style of rule which opponents describe as resembling Belarus’ or Russia’s.

Meanwhile, despite GD’s attempts to disorientate, intimidate and oppress dissenters into inaction, nightly anti-government protests continue in Tbilisi with no signs of stopping.

The party’s only way to ensure a majority at the next elections and retain their power, Vashadze explained, is by “limiting democracy itself”.

The politician pointed to GD’s recent pledge to ban all opposition parties from future elections, a move which followed a slew of repressive legislation targeting independent media, foreign funded NGOs, protesters, journalists and opposition figures. In December, Vashadze himself was attacked with a screwdriver during a protest, allegedly by a government-hired “titushky” thug.

“If there is a more or less democratic environment in the next parliamentary election, they [GD] will lose; they understand this,” Vashadze continued, “they want to force their opponents to give up.”

The West must do more

Vashadze stressed the West should be taking more active steps to mitigate Russian hybrid attacks in Georgia and elsewhere, pointing out how authoritarian regimes like Russian President Vladimir Putin’s and GD’s “capitalise” on a lack of strong leadership from Western leaders.

As the opposition politician sees it, the “democratic world” – the UK, EU and US – needs to shift from a “defensive, reactive” state to a “proactive” one, concentrating policies and intelligence efforts on fighting Russian disinformation and manipulation campaigns. “You should not wait until your enemy attacks you, you should lead the process,” Vashadze believes.

In his view, concrete actions must now replace diplomacy, which in too large quantities equates to weakness. Vashadze considers the “weakness” of the West, and specifically former US president Joe Biden, as one of the factors which prompted Putin to invade Ukraine in February 2022.

While he disagrees with the Trump administration in many areas, Vashadze admits that, as it stands, a “strong US is, to some extent, a guarantor of peace in Georgia”.

Yet he hopes that, with the ongoing reshaping of global politics, the EU and UK will be “forced to wake up”, reduce their security dependence on the US, and unite in the face of the Russian threat.

“If Ukraine were to surrender,” Vashadze concluded, “I do think Tbilisi would be the next target for Russia.”