Despite the withdrawal of the Russian-style law on “foreign agents,” the Georgian Dream Government has launched a concerted campaign to discredit the mass protests that forced it to withdraw the law. The campaign’s narratives often converge with narratives pushed by the Kremlin, a study by DFRLab, a Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think-tank has found.
Manipulating the fear of war and pushing an alleged western conspiracy to “drag Georgia into war” is one but not the only such “shared” narrative, according to the study.
On 7 March, for example, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili called the protesters "servants" of foreign countries, implying the West. Similarly, on 10 March, after the GD bowed to public pressure and abandoned the proposed legislation, GD leader Irakli Kobakhidze again described the protesters as "foreign agents" trying to overthrow the government.
Georgian Dream chair Irakli Kobakhidze mirrored a popular Kremlin narrative, blaming Georgian civil society and NGOs for allegedly attacking the Orthodox Church and spreading "LGBT propaganda".
Mr Kobakhidze also said that the Rose Revolution of 2003 had been orchestrated by "spies", costing the country 20% of its land, and claimed the same for Ukraine's 2014 Revolution of Dignity.
Following the protests, the Russian Foreign Ministry threatened Tbilisi with invasion - "We recommend the Georgian people to remember a similar situation in Ukraine in 2014 and what it eventually led to! #ThinkTwice.”
Just like the Georgian Dream leaders, Russian FM Sergei Lavrov claimed the demonstrators aspired to a “violent change of power" that "of course being orchestrated from abroad". Putin spokesman Peskov, while denying any links between the GD-backed 'foreign agents' bill and its Russian equivalent, said: "It is important for Russia that there is calm on its borders."
The Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said Georgia lost a “chance of sovereignty” with the withdrawal of the “foreign agents” bill.
Similar statements were heard in the Russian-occupied region of Abkhazia.
In a recent interview on GD-linked TV Imedi, Prime Minister Garibashvili even took a swipe at Ukrainian President Zelensky, saying that Zelensky was "motivated to do something here [in Georgia] as well".
დახურვა