“It is time for everyone to shake off their loser mentality and ride the wave of victory,” Georgia’s former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, wrote on social media.

According to Saakashvili, the defeatist attitude that Bidzina Ivanishvili cannot be beaten, and that political capital should instead be gained by denouncing ‘Misha’, completely ignores shifts in world politics.

“Right on our doorstep, in Armenia, Russia has suffered a bitter defeat. Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine has liberated up to 700 square kilometres of its territory from the invaders. Putin is in dire straits and is sending secret emissaries to Zelenskyy.

Europe has finally rallied, and following Orbán’s defeat, Ukraine’s funding has been fully unlocked. NATO is providing 70 billion for defence. The Americans have openly moved to squeeze Russian positions across the entire region.

We haven’t seen anything like this since the Reagan era. Their active involvement in our region further confirms this; if Ivanishvili continues his loyalty to the Russians, and he absolutely will, he will turn America into an outright enemy.

Yet here at home, we are still witnessing the same old mindset: ‘We can’t defeat Ivanishvili anyway, so maybe we can at least get some sort of payoff, including by denouncing Misha.’ Such an approach completely ignores global trends. It is time for everyone to break free from this defeatist complex and ride the wave of victory,” Saakashvili wrote.