“Contrary to all expectations and aspirations of the Georgian people, the ruling party starts to push Georgia back under Russian domination and back into a Russian model of governing the country,” said former president Salome Zourabichvili addressing the plenary sitting of the Lithuanian Seimas.
Here is Salome Zourabichvili’s full speech as delivered:
“Honourable Speaker, Distinguished Members of the Seimas, Dear Friends of Georgia, it is a privilege to stand before you today in front of the Lithuanian Parliament, a place that embodies for us, Georgians, the triumph of democracy over repression, the resilience of a nation that fought for its European destiny and won.
Today, as Georgia faces one of the gravest threats to its democracy and to its European future, I come not only to express gratitude but to call for action.
Lithuania has always been at the forefront of supporting Georgia’s independence and European integration. At the time of independence, we were together. I remember this time on 9th of February, if I’m not mistaken, you had your referendum on independence in 1991. In a few days, we are going to celebrate massively on the streets of Tbilisi also our referendum on independence, which happened on 31st of March, 1991, because that’s a major symbol when we said no to occupation, no to the Soviet times, yes to independence, and more than 90% of the Georgians took part in that referendum and said yes to their future.
Your solidarity has accompanied us since then, advancing towards Euro-Atlantic integration in Europe, from neighbourhood to association, from visa liberalization to candidate status. You were standing with us during the 2008 war. You were with us, supporting our democratic reforms, supporting the establishment of state institutions, as well as our economic growth and diversification.
Today you are again standing with the Georgian people when they are protesting those undermining our democracy and European future, standing with the Georgian people’s demand to refuse recognition of fraudulent elections and their call for new free elections.
For these, we are deeply grateful. But now the crisis in Georgia has escalated beyond electoral fraud, beyond the mere political crisis, where the opposition contests the results of an election, when a ruling party tries to consolidate its power at whatever cost to compensate for the popular support that has started eroding. We are confronting a different challenge that we can only qualify as an existential challenge and usurpation of our destiny.
The ruling party that came to power was initially supported by a vast majority of the country because it came to power with a pro-European program and democratic reforms program, suddenly, decides on the 28th of November last, to turn its back on its own promises enshrined in the Constitution’s Article 78. It turns its back on the expressed will of the nation to bring Georgia into the European family and, contrary to all expectations and aspirations of the Georgian people, starts to push Georgia back under Russian domination and back into a Russian model of governing the country.
The Russian nightmare, which we thought was part of history since our independence, is coming back to haunt us in the 21st century. In Georgia today, we are a nation under repression. Innocent people—journalists, actors, students, civil society leaders, and political leaders—are dragged into police stations, falsely accused and sentenced under fabricated charges.
At the time when I’m speaking, there is a trial going on of one of the famous artists, but non-famous people are also under the same irregularity and repression and might be charged for 11 years for nothing more than peacefully protesting.
The government, mirroring Russian tactics, has weaponized the judiciary and the police against its own citizens.
There is a famous case of Mzia Amaghlobeli, a respected journalist, who was arrested simply for doing her job, reporting on protests. All the actors and students who joined peaceful demonstrations are charged with group violence, a false accusation sustained by forced testimonies from police officers under government pressure.
These are not criminals. These are ordinary citizens who believe in freedom, and yet in today’s Georgia, believing in democracy is enough to put you behind bars.
Journalists of the Public Channel, those who should be serving their country and population, are accused publicly, because of their expressed opinions, by members of the governing board of the public channel, of anti-state activities that should be investigated by the general prosecutor.
1937 suddenly sounds very close. The repression is not just political, it is also financial. A new set of draconian laws has been introduced to that effect. Peaceful protestors face massive fines of 5,000 Laris (about $1,800) when the minimum wage is 200 Laris and the average wage is around 1,500 Laris. And this is for each time you cross Rustaveli Avenue, you can be fined, and these amounts for some people can be five, seven, or ten times their income.
These are deliberately designed to financially cripple activists and their families. Solidarity funds created by the population to support these protestors have been frozen, and active control over the sources of financing of all activists and politically active persons is ongoing.
Opposition leaders, activists, and even ordinary citizens who voice dissent can now be jailed under vague and politically motivated charges. Today, one of the opposition party leaders is already threatened with criminal charges because he doesn’t want to recognize a newly formed commission under the one-party parliament.
NGOs, media outlets, and civil society organizations that receive international funds face suffocating restrictions, just like in Russia under Putin’s infamous foreign agents law, which is going to be made even stricter under a so-called American model, FARA law that has nothing to do with the actual American model, as you can guess. This practically closes all channels of possible foreign financing, not only for NGOs but also for small enterprises and regional or central media. Those are under increasing pressure, and through additional regulations they’re also constrained and critical information, thus, is more and more constrained. Spreading fear, and convincing citizens of the capacity of the state to control everything, is exemplified by the multiplication, by the hundreds of cameras in all central locations, using artificial intelligence to allow face recognition, identification, and repression of all protestors.
The ruling party leading this endless repression is not governing the country. There is no economic policy, no foreign policy beyond attempts at handshaking to show the population that someone somewhere recognizes them. There are no positive measures or policies that would aim at making the country more effective, more stable, solving social issues, or preventing the looming economic and financial crisis.
Repression has become the only and exclusive policy. This is not just an erosion of democracy. It is its systematic destruction that carries with it the de facto annihilation of the state. No independent institutions are left. The parliament does not really exist beyond being a one-party parliament. Not a single debate has taken place in over four months. There are no independent ministries or agencies. One-party, but in reality one-man rule, has taken over the state, politics, and social life. Georgia’s independence itself is under siege.
But dear friends, this is not only about Georgia. This is a test for Europe itself. The events that are unfolding in my country are part of a much larger plan, one orchestrated by Moscow to re-establish its control over the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and Europe’s access to Central Asia.
The Black Sea has already become a battleground, as we all know. But Russia is expanding its military presence in Ochamchire, for instance, in occupied Abkhazia, turning it into a naval military base that will further project Russian power into the region.
This, combined with its continued militarization of Crimea and its massive attacks on Odesa, is part of a broader strategy to push NATO and the EU out of the Black Sea.
That means the end of all the ambitious EU infrastructure projects of connectivity, energy, transit, that had in common the need for the Black Sea to be turned into a sea of cooperation, hence of stability and security.
The Caucasus is a tipping point. With Armenia moving closer to the EU and the West, Moscow is using every means—economic pressure, military threats, hybrid warfare—to prevent this shift. If Georgia gets back under the Russian sphere of influence, that cuts off the Caucasus from European integration, leaving Armenia vulnerable and giving Russia total control over the strategic region.
Central Asia is also concerned. If Georgia falls, Europe will lose its last direct transit route to Central Asia, ceding economic and political influence to both Russia and China.
The Anaklia Deep Sea Project, our chance to create a trade corridor independent of Russian control, has been blocked by this pro-Russian ruling party in Georgia, while China is being welcomed to take control of this key infrastructure.
The consequences might be irreversible. The Black Sea dominated by Russia and China, Iran’s interests taking place in the Caucasus, Caucasus cut off from the West, and Europe that no longer has strategic access to Central Asia’s resources and markets.
Europe must act now. If we allow Georgia to fall back into Russian hands, it will not be just a tragedy for my country, it will be a strategic disaster for Europe. It will prove that Russia no longer needs military aggression or military invasions to achieve its goals. It can simply use, at a much lesser cost for itself, hybrid warfare, electoral manipulation, economic coercion, and internal takeovers to remove democratic governments and replace them with authoritarian projects.
It is now testing these new grounds in Georgia, as it has done in 2008 when it was testing military aggression games. If this appears to be easily successful and much less costly than the very uncertain and already costly war against Ukraine, Russia will certainly expand its new strategy to countries where it has already been carrying out some initial tests. That is Romania and Moldova, and it will certainly, whatever the outcome of today’s talks, try to use this in the now-called Ukrainian elections, which might be very dangerous and give Russia what it has not been able to win through its aggressive war.
And why not, this might be expanded to other European states, as we have seen in some examples of recent elections.
The challenge goes beyond the Georgian experiment. The manipulation of elections and the rapidity with which a whole set of Russian laws have been implemented thereafter should be studied to prepare counter-strategies by Europe. That is why Lithuania’s support and that of our traditional friends, but not less the support of the nations of Europe that are rediscovering the need for a strong and self-sufficient Europe, is more critical than ever.
The European Union and NATO cannot remain passive. Europe should take a closer look at the financial network supporting this regime, which today is helping Russia make Georgia a sanctions evasion hub. The adoption of the offshore law that went almost unnoticed by European authorities is, in reality, directly challenging the non-circumvention policy and transforming Georgia into a grey zone, where sanctioned oligarchs and all kinds of trafficking can develop without legal constraints.
At the door of Europe, this represents a threat and a challenge that deserves better scrutiny and reaction.
The issue of sanctions, whether national or collective on the part of the European Union, is important. But if sanctions are to be applied, they should not be exclusively punitive. Instead, they should be set within a political strategy that is currently lacking—making these sanctions part of a real conditionality policy, linking them to the demand for new elections, enhanced with a clear calendar.
Beyond the current de facto non-recognition policy, the European Union should express more support for what is the only known, stable, and peaceful way out of the current standoff between the ruling party and the protests that are entering their fifth month: new elections in a free and fair environment. No alternative exists. No peaceful alternatives or instability. Because if we do not find this alternative together, this would mean either Georgia turning completely into a Russian model—thus a failure for European policy in that part of the world where decades of European engagement and resources have been spent—or risking volatility, instability, that is the usual end to such a longstanding, deep, and unresolved crisis.
While trying to find a way through the war in Ukraine, clearly, nobody should want to see a new open crisis and instability erupting in the periphery of Europe and the Black Sea. Especially since this can still be prevented today and should be prevented.
A new Black Sea and Caucasus security strategy, one that secures Europe’s access to Central Asia, strengthens NATO’s presence, and blocks Russian and Chinese expansion in the region, is indispensable. Such a strategy needs a partner, and the only partner available is a stable and democratic Georgia—one that will encourage and support the progress that its neighbor Armenia is now engaged in, in the peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, opening the way to a stronger and more peaceful Caucasus, which again needs Georgia to hold its positions and be the strong anchor of our EU and Euro-American partners, as it has been for the past three decades.
Last but not least, talks about the readiness of the European Union to replace funds for official programs that have been suspended by emergency support for civil society, including financial aid for persecuted activists, independent journalists, and NGOs who are fighting on the front lines of democracy, must not remain words but become reality.
Time is running out, and until now, the repressive laws are cutting channels faster than those that could be opened. But ways and means must be found to deliver such support in the same ways as creative channels were created in the case of Russia and Belarus earlier on. The survival of our vibrant civil society is at stake. So, all of that, and this is my message, is not just about defending Georgia, it is about defending Europe’s own strategic future and its own identity.
If Europe, which is rediscovering its strengths and the need for autonomy, cannot find ways to have leverage on a small country with a massively pro-European population and bring it back through carrots and sticks to its chosen path as a candidate country—if Europe cannot manage its own decision-making process so as not to be paralyzed by a few—then the challenge goes much beyond Georgia.
It will affect the credibility of the EU’s foreign policy, its enlargement policy, and its policy of becoming a strong economic, political, and military power. We are one of the countries with the most determined, pro-European populations for a long time, a front-runner of European integration, where large resources from our European, NATO, and American partners were devoted to creating and sustaining independent institutions, justice, police, and army, in order to enforce stability and security.
All of these investments have to be defended and secured, not only for Georgia’s sake but for Europe’s own sake and for our common future.
Lithuania understands this better than anyone. You know what it means to resist Russian domination. You know that democracy is not given, it is fought for, and you have proven that victory is possible. That is why Georgia counts on Lithuania. That is why we count on Europe. Because if we stand together, we will not only save Georgia, we will preserve the security and integrity of Europe itself,” she said.
