Georgia’s ruling party has again used footage of war damage in Ukraine in its election campaign, repeating its 2024 tactic to suggest that keeping the party in power will ensure peace and prevent war ahead of the October 2025 municipal vote. The Ukrainian embassy has criticised the campaign.
A video released by the ruling party on Monday featured two frames: one showing graves of destroyed infrastructure in Ukrainian cities, shelling, and graves of Ukrainian soldiers, contrasted with renovated parks, roads, and historic buildings in Georgia, overlaid with the slogan: ‘No to war! Choose peace!’
This is yet another illustration of the broader rhetoric adopted by Georgian Dream after Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022. The leaders of the ruling party repeatedly claimed that they were sole guarantors of peace in Georgia, while the political opposition and other critics were trying to open a second front in Georgia and drag the country into a war with Russia.
These claims were particularly amplified by Georgian Dream ahead of the disputed 2024 parliamentary elections, when it used footage of the war in Ukraine in its campaign for the first time. In addition to online materials, the ruling party also displayed large banners on the streets of Tbilisi and other cities with the war scenes, provoking outrage among critics.
Ukraine criticised Georgian Dream for its use of images from Ukraine in its campaigns — both in the lead-up to the parliamentary elections and the local elections.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry described the video as a ‘cynical action’ and ‘yet another unfriendly action’ by the ruling party, ‘that for its own political PR purposes keeps using videos depicting the horrific consequences of the Russian full-scale aggression against Ukraine’.
‘It is regrettable to observe how the Georgian authorities crawl before Moscow and disregard the principles of dignity and independence, which [are] historically inherent to the Georgian nation and constitute an integral part of its identity’, the statement said.
The ministry advised the ruling party’s strategists to ‘post a more truthful image on their pages: the Russian tricolor on the right and closed doors of the EU and NATO on the left’.
‘This would reflect reality, as the current Georgian government has deprived the country not of war, but of a European future’.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the once friendly ties between Georgia and Ukraine have frayed, with Georgian Dream leaders, including Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, routinely criticising the country.
Officials of the ruling party have repeatedly claimed that Russia’s war in Ukraine could have been avoided by Kyiv. When asked what Ukraine could have done to avoid war, a leading Georgian Dream member, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze stated in February 2025 that ‘politicians are in politics to do everything in their power to avert threats and to act in the interests of their country and its people’.
In the context of war, the ruling party often refers to the ‘deep state’ and ‘global war party’ — two nebulous terms that regularly feature in Georgian Dream’s conspiracy theory-tinged rhetoric. According to the party, these shadowy forces have infiltrated political circles in the West, dragged Ukraine into war, and are trying to do the same in Georgia.
The municipal elections for which Georgian Dream prepared the controversial video will be held in Georgia on October 4 2025. Several major opposition parties have boycotted the vote, stating that they don’t recognise the ruling party’s legitimacy following the disputed 2024 vote.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
