Investigative journalist says Kremlin plans to interfere in Georgia’s parliamentary elections

Investigative journalist Christo Grozev has warned that Russia has contingency plans in case Georgian Dream is defeated in Saturday’s parliamentary elections. 

In an interview with the Baltic media outlet Delfi published on Thursday, Grozev said he had received hacked messages between employees from Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) proposing ‘radical measures’ to ensure that Georgia does not become a ‘new Armenia’. 

Armenia, which has long had close relations with Russia, has seen those ties deteriorate in recent years following the 2018 Velvet revolution and Russian inaction in the Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia–Azerbaijan conflicts.

While the messages did not detail specific plans, Grozev said he assumed they might mirror that of the Belarusian scenario, in which Russia would ‘conspire with the ruling party to declare an implausible mega-victory’.

Grozev has worked on a number of notable investigations involving Russian intelligence, including the identification of suspects in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014, the poisoning of dissident Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018, and the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020.

As in the case of the 2020 Belarusian presidential election, such blatant electoral fraud would then likely lead to widespread protests that would be ‘suppressed by an unprecedented repressive force’, Grozev said. 

In order to make the suppression more palatable to Georgian society, the Kremlin might orchestrate the ‘peaceful’ return of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as part of a confederation government. However, Grozev said such a plan would be a ‘trojan horse’ that would ‘forever subjugate Georgia to Russia’. 

‘If Russia’s plans work, it will be the end of a free Georgia as we know it’, he added. 

SVR officials have claimed in the lead-up Georgia’s parliamentary elections that the US will try to instigate a ‘colour revolution’. In July, Andrei Klimov, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Federation Council, said the Kremlin was willing to assist Georgian Dream retain power if help is requested. 

The allegations of an alleged plot by Western forces to prepare for revolution or forced change of government have also been made by pro-Georgian Dream figures. 

The US has said the claims are ‘categorically false’.