The Chair of Georgia’s Gori Municipal Council and a member of the ruling Georgian Dream party has reportedly praised Russian troops for entering the town during the August 2008 War, calling them ‘peacekeepers’.
In an interview with the New York Times Magazine, Davit Razmadze was quoted as saying Russian forces stopped then-President Mikheil Saakashvili’s ‘thugs’ from looting the town.
Razmadze has denied making the remarks and accused American journalist Scott Anderson of lying.
The article was published on Wednesday, examining the current democratic backsliding and growing authoritarianism in Georgia, along with deteriorating relations with the West and a trend toward rapprochement with Russia.
Anderson discussed the August 2008 War with Razmadze, who has held the position of Gori City Council chair for three consecutive terms since Georgian Dream came to power in 2012.
During the 2008 August War, Russia repeatedly bombed Gori. During, and for a brief period after the war, Russian troops along with South Ossetian militiamen occupied the town of 46,000 people, with widespread reports of homes being looted.
According to the New York Times Magazine, Razmadze not only said ‘It was all Misha’s fault’, echoing the ruling party’s claim that the war was started by then-president Saakashvili’s government, but also spoke positively about the entry of Russian forces into the city.
‘They came here as peacekeepers, and thank God that they did, because Misha’s hooligans were looting right across the city’, he said, as quoted by the publication.
‘They even stole a priest’s car, if you can believe it. If the Russians hadn’t come, who knows how much more damage they would have caused’, he added.
In the same interview, Razmadze also said he does not want Georgia to join the EU ‘and have them tell us what to do’. Moreover, he added, ‘just as the Soviet Union collapsed, I now want to see the EU fall down because it’s against us’.
Within hours of the article’s publication, Razmadze’s comments were translated by Georgian media outlets, sparking sharp criticism on social media, with thousands of angry reactions and heated comments, including users calling Razmadze a ‘traitor’ and a ‘Russian’.
Amidst the criticism, Razmadze spent Thursday morning defending himself to journalists, insisting that he never said the words attributed to him in the article. He also published a Facebook post, stating that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ‘the devil’s apostle’ and calling Russia itself ‘an aggressor and oppressor’.
Razmadze also accused Anderson of ‘slander’, calling him a ‘scoundrel’.
‘This is slander and lies from beginning to end, because in my life I have never said anything positive about Russia. As for what is mentioned, “Saakashvili’s hooligans”, I never said anything like that. What I said was that Saakashvili’s government abandoned the city’, he told TV Pirveli.
In a separate interview with Netgazeti, Razmadze again denied ever using the term ‘Saakashvili’s hooligans’, saying that he had spoken to Anderson about ‘Ossetian armed groups’ who were looting shops in Gori and had even stolen a priest’s car.
‘Then the Russians came in and supposedly restored order. But my view is that all of this may have been orchestrated by the Russians to show us — look, we are the benefactors and the Ossetians are the bad ones. They even brought in humanitarian aid and distributed some things’, he added, further trying to prove that Anderson had distorted his words.
Razmadze also denied accusing Saakashvili of starting the war, saying instead that the former president had merely ‘enabled’ the process. He further insisted that he did not oppose EU integration in the interview.
‘That scoundrel — I don’t even know, did he really represent The New York Times? I already doubt that. He was sent on purpose’, he said of Anderson, adding that if his party colleagues from Georgian Dream ‘stand by him’, he will sue Anderson.
OC Media has reached out to The New York Times Magazine regarding Razmadze’s allegations, but has not received an answer as of publication.
Razmadze has previously faced criticism for his public statements.
In 2023, while discussing the detention of Georgian citizens by Russian forces along the South Ossetian border, he blamed locals residents’ own carelessness.
‘For example, in the Nikozi [village] area, some people have a few drinks and then decide they want to cross [the line] and pray over there, or continue their partying there’, Razmadze said at the time.
The August 2008 War and Georgian Dream’s allegations
Opposition figures and others have repeatedly criticised Georgian Dream for its statements about the August 2008 War.
The authorities’ controversial stance on the war has evolved over the years, beginning with hints that the then-ruling party, the United National Movement (UNM), was to blame for failing to prevent it, and culminating in recent statements by Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze claiming that the war was started by then-President Saakashvili at the behest of foreign powers.
Blaming the previous government for provoking the war is a central point of the parliamentary commission established by Georgian Dream to investigate the opposition in February of this year. The commission recently ended its work and vowed to publish its findings in September.
The commission’s move sparked protests from government critics, who argued that Georgian Dream’s rhetoric downplayed Russia’s responsibility for the war. Family members of fallen soldiers of the Georgian Army, as well as some current and former military personnel, joined the criticism.
For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
