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Three months before the parliamentary elections, the State Security Service of Georgia (SSSG) said that it foiled an assassination attempt on the founder and honorary chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is widely regarded as the country’s eminence gris. The Georgian SSSG has previously opened cases on what it called attempts to organize unrest in the country, with the aim of a subsequent coup d'etat. But this time, according to the government, it has to confront global forces that have previously threatened US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico. The assassination attempt was allegedly carried out by Georgian volunteers fighting for Ukraine, who have been at the government’s crosshair since the start of the war. However, opponents of the Georgian Dream are saying that this case may once again indicate hidden ties between the Georgian authorities and Moscow.
Tbilisi questions Ukraine volunteers as it claims that it foiled a terrorist coup d’etat
In late July, three months before the parliamentary elections, the State Security Service of Georgia announced that it had launched an investigation into the attempted murder of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder and honorary chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party.
"The investigation is underway into the preparation of a terrorist act and a conspiracy to overthrow state power," the SSSG statement said.
The agency confirmed that the investigation was launched under Articles 18-323 (preparation of a terrorist act) and 315 (conspiracy to overthrow state power) of the Criminal Code of Georgia.
It is noteworthy that the case was classified as "secret." The official statement did not name the people suspected of organizing the assassination attempt, but it did indicate that the terrorist act was planned and financed by former high-ranking officials of the government of ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili from the security forces who are now in Ukraine.
Over the course of a week, more than ten people were summoned to the SSSG for questioning. Almost all of them were among the Georgian volunteers who fought in Ukraine on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And in 2008, many of them were participants in the Georgian-Russian war.
The lawyers of those questioned call the investigation "political", "absurd" and "illegal". They are sure that their clients are being punished for "fighting in Ukraine against Russia".
The commander of the Georgian Legion fighting in Ukraine, Mamuka Mamulashvili, previously told The Insider that about 300 people fighting in Ukraine are wanted in Georgia. Most of these people, according to him, are still in Ukraine. At the same time, Mamulashvili emphasized that Russian and Georgian special services are probably working in sync today.
"Many of our guys who returned to Georgia were advised to leave by the Georgian special services. They were told: "There are a lot of Russian [agents] here, we will no longer be able to protect you, we ask you to leave the country." I do not rule out that some of the guys may be extradited to Russia after the autumn elections," he told The Insider on July 22.
The conflict between the government and Georgian volunteers fighting in Ukraine started soon after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, when authorities prevented the landing on Tbilisi’s International Airport of a plane that was about to ferry some 30 Georgian fighters to Ukraine. That decision would lead to a diplomatic scandal, as president Volodymyr Zelensky recalled the Ukrainian ambassador from Tbilisi. The Georgian authorities took it even further, and they began to threaten the Georgian volunteers who still managed to get to Ukraine with deprivation of citizenship.
Subsequently, the Georgian volunteers even suspected that the authorities in Tbilisi were passing their personal information to the Russian special services. On February 13, the media published a list of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs that contained personal data of 100 Georgian citizens fighting as part of the international legions on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who are wanted in Russia. In addition, in June 2023, a participant in military operations against the Russian Federation, military medic Keti Leshkasheli, published a screenshot on her Facebook page showing information about her that was known to Moscow. Similar accusations against the authorities were voiced in July 2022 by serviceman Mikhail Kamkhadze. The personal file of the Georgian officer also fell into the hands of Russian special services.
Georgian Dream claims that a "global war party" tried to kill Fico, Trump, and Ivanishvili, but offers no evidence for the allegations
From the very beginning of the full-scale war, Georgian authorities spoke of solidarity with Ukraine, but at the same time repeatedly accused Kyiv, the Georgian opposition and the "party of global war" of trying to open a "second front" against Russia in Georgia.
Earlier, the "Georgian Dream" used such terms as "destructive opposition" and "collective National Movement" to discredit its opponents, referring to the former team of Mikhail Saakashvili and his alleged like-minded people. But after the start of the war in Ukraine, a new term appeared in the rhetoric of members of the ruling party – "party of global war".
Thus, according to statements by the leaders of the "Georgian Dream", a certain global force is not only trying to unleash a war in Georgia, but even exerts pressure or misleads Western governments. At the same time, as many experts note, such narratives surprisingly repeat the Kremlin's conspiracy theories about the so-called collective West.
The Georgian government claimed that the "party of global war" was behind an alleged assassination attempt on Bidzina Ivanishvili. Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said that the same forces were behind the assassination attempt on Ivanishvili as in the case of the assassination attempts on Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico and former US President Donald Trump.
"Two terrorist attacks have been committed recently – one in Slovakia, the second in the US. This is a common pattern that characterizes the same global political forces," the head of the Georgian government said.
The head of the Georgian Dream faction, Mamuka Mdinaradze, also spoke about a similar theory.
"This is a continuation of pseudo-liberal fascism, within the framework of which the assassination of Trump was planned, then Fico, then a hint at the assassination of Irakli Kobakhidze, and now, it turns out, they were planning to blow up us and Bidzina Ivanishvili," Mdinaradze said.
Investigations in both Slovakia and the US have so far shown that the individuals that shot at former president Donald Trump and prime-minister Robert Fico had no known accomplices and most likely acted alone. Far right politicians in Europe have indeed said that the rhetoric of left wing politicians and activists that opposed Trump and Fico may have fueled the would be assassins, but none claimed that the two were acting as part of national, let alone international, plots. The Georgian officials presented no evidence whatsoever for their claims, which seem to belong rather to the realm of far-fetched conspiracy theories. It should be noted that such a conspiracy theory perfectly fits pro-Russian narratives, as Trump, Fico, and Ivanishvili are all seen as being sympathetic towards Russia. The Kremlin had for years tried to foster relationships with pro-Russian politicians from the West (they mostly come from the far right or far left political spectrum) and the Russian propaganda and disinformation machine has been constantly spreading stories that Russian-friendly politicians are being marginalized by forces hostile to Moscow, usually aligned with an alignment of “deep state”, pro-war, big-business groups.
Coincidences, and allegations about a planned coup d’etats. The Georgian Dream, suspected of borrowing from Russia’s playbook on the so-called “foreign interference”
Interestingly, this is not the first report of a foiled coup in the country in the past year. Six months after the first failed attempt to pass a law on foreign agents in Georgia in the spring of 2023 (the law was eventually passed in 2024), the Georgian government went on the counteroffensive and began a witch hunt.
At that time, the State Security Service of Georgia announced that “destabilization and civil unrest” were planned for October-December 2023. At the same time, they talked about attempts by external forces to organize a “Georgian Euromaidan” in Tbilisi and “threats from outside”. And the specific organizers of the coup were named as ethnic Georgians who worked in the Ukrainian government and lived in Ukraine.
The author of the plan was then named as Georgy Lortkipanidze, deputy head of military intelligence of Ukraine, who under the government of Mikheil Saakashvili was deputy to the then Minister of Internal Affairs Vano Merabishvili.
Also among the participants were named former member of the security of ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili Mikheil Baturin and member of Saakashvili's inner circle, commander of the "Georgian Legion" operating in Ukraine Mamuka Mamulashvili.
At that time, the case did not develop and for a long time there was no new information about the investigation of this case. However, in the spring, "Georgian Dream" regularly returned to this topic, using it as an additional argument in favor of adopting a law on "foreign agents" in the country.
Georgian opposition sees suspicious coordination between Georgian and Russian governments
It is noteworthy that the reports about the upcoming liquidation of Ivanishvili did not go unnoticed in Moscow. Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov stated that Russia condemns any assassination attempts and considers them unacceptable:
"We believe that any assassination attempt is an act of terrorism, especially against current politicians."
And Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Andrei Klimov even stated that Russia is ready to help the Georgian authorities prevent a coup if Tbilisi asks Moscow for help.
"A coup d'etat is the interference of external forces in the internal affairs of another state... For example, an attempt to overthrow the government in Syria. When the legitimate Assad government asked us for military assistance, among other things, we provided them with this assistance, and, as you know, the situation in Syria stabilized" Klimov said, without specifying, however, which specific "external forces" were trying to interfere in the internal affairs of Syria.
It is also interesting that literally a few weeks before the Georgian State Security Service announced that a possible assassination attempt on Bidzina Ivanishvili had been prevented, on July 7, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) announced that the United States was planning a change of government in Georgia via a coup d'etat based on the "Euromaidan" scenario. The statement was published on the official SVR website.
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service claimed that "American directors" wanted to change the Georgian government by staging another "color revolution”. To implement this plan, according to the SVR statement, the US was even ready to make a “sacred sacrifice” from among the protesters, which would direct the “anger of the people” to the security forces. As an example, the department used the favorite narrative about the events in Kiev in 2014, when hundreds of people were allegedly sacrificed “on the altar of democracy”, “shot, among others, by Georgian mercenary snipers”. “American masters of provocation have such extensive experience”, the Russian special service added. These allegations contradict the well documented fact that Ukrainian security forces opened fire against EuroMaidan protesters.
Government critics in Tbilisi point that the coincidence between the allegations made by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service and the Georgian State Security Service is suspicious. They feel that the actions and statements of Tbilisi and Moscow are, if not coordinated, then interconnected, and that the Georgian Dream has been acting according to the Kremlin’s playbook.
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