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Akbar Novruz

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Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze has accused what he described as the “deep state” and a “global war party” of seeking to weaken Georgia’s economy by discouraging Russian tourists from visiting the country and undermining economic ties between Tbilisi and Moscow, AzerNEWS reports.

Speaking at a briefing at the Georgian government administration on Wednesday, Kobakhidze claimed that the alleged campaign was ultimately aimed at drawing Georgia into a military confrontation with Russia.

According to the prime minister, the plan represents a continuation of what he described as earlier attempts to involve Georgia in Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.

He said that in 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, domestic groups had allegedly called on the Georgian government to open a “second front” against Russia and send volunteers to fight in Ukraine.

Kobakhidze argued that the alleged strategy has now shifted toward discouraging Russian citizens from travelling to Georgia.

“If in 2022, at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, on the instructions of the ‘deep state’, a local radical agency called on the government to open a second front and send volunteers to Ukraine, while at the same time foreign agents offered to ‘walk’ with military force in Georgia’s Sukhumi and Tskhinvali, according to the new plan of the ‘deep state’, their local agency should do everything to ensure that Russian tourists no longer come to Georgia,” he said.

Kobakhidze claimed that such a campaign could eventually prompt Russia to suspend economic relations with Georgia.

“The goal of all this, as well as the opening of a second front and joining the sanctions imposed on Russia, is to collapse the Georgian economy, incite hostility between nations, and lead the processes to a military conflict,” he said.

The prime minister also accused unnamed foreign partners and domestic opposition groups of previously attempting to push Georgia toward joining Western sanctions against Russia and sending volunteers to Ukraine.

He said that after those efforts failed, the alleged campaign focused on Georgia’s relations with the European Union and what he called “Russophobic” initiatives.

As examples, Kobakhidze referred to protests over the arrival of the Russian cruise ship Astoria Grande in Batumi in 2023, as well as opposition politician Elene Khoshtaria’s protest over a wedding involving Russian citizens at the Kvareli Lake resort.

The wedding was attended by Ekaterina Lavrova, daughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and her husband, Aleksandr Vinokurov.

“This campaign was directly directed against tourists. They portrayed Russian tourists as a threat,” Kobakhidze said, arguing that such attitudes were incompatible with Georgian culture.

He stressed that Georgia should maintain ties between Georgian and Russian societies despite political disagreements, particularly given the existence of mixed families and Georgian and Russian diasporas in both countries.

“No matter what the ‘deep state’ plan is, we should not allow political disagreements, political mistakes made in the past, or the plan of the global war party to involve Georgia in the war and open a second front with Russia to become the basis for hostility between peoples,” he said.