Ukraine’s Sports Ministry has issued a ruling revoking honorary titles given to a number of athletes, including Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze.
Kaladze had been awarded the title of ‘Master of Sports of Ukraine of international class’ in 1999 while playing on Ukraine’s premier football team, Dynamo Kyiv.
Other athletes on the list included Ukrainian-born footballer Anatolii Tymoshchuk, who was sanctioned by Kyiv after continuing to work in Russia following the full-scale invasion, and chess grandmaster Serhii Kariakin, who is from Crimea and has openly supported Russia’s war.
Kaladze, who also serves as the general secretary of the ruling Georgian Dream party, was sanctioned by Ukraine along with other Georgian officials in December amid the police crackdown on the protest movement that erupted in response to the government’s EU U-turn.
According to property filings reported in 2023, Kaladze owns two properties in Kyiv, valued at $150,000 and $700,000 respectively. It is unclear what their current status is following the imposition of sanctions.
Kaladze has also had a public falling out with Andrii Shevchenko, star Ukrainian footballer and his former teammate on Dynamo Kyiv. Shevchenko is currently president of the Ukrainian Football Association.
In February 2025, Shevchenko said at a press conference that he does not ‘maintain contact with Kaladze’, adding that ‘Kaladze does not exist for me’.
In response, Kaladze said, ‘Ukraine is currently in a difficult situation, undergoing trials. Shevchenko is grieving today. For me as a Georgian, it is unacceptable to engage in polemics with a person who is grieving’.
‘I very much hope that this nightmare will soon end in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian people will be able to analyse correctly what has happened to them’, he concluded.
While Kaladze did not specify at the time exactly what he meant, he has on numerous occasions said that the so-called global war party is responsible for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Following the public blowout between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi and President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in February, Kaladze voiced support for Trump, saying that he again ‘clearly emphasised who wants war and who wants peace’.
Responding to the negative reactions to Trump and Vance’s verbal attacks on Zelenskyi, Kaladze said they illustrated ‘that there is a global war party that wants to wage war in different countries of the world’.
Georgian Dream officials have routinely referenced the threat of the so-called ‘global war party’ and ‘deep state’, two nebulous terms for shadowy forces the ruling party claims have been trying to pull Georgia into war and overthrow the government.
Xandie (Alexandra) Kuenning
