Reports have raised fears of a Kiev-style ‘color revolution’ in Tbilisi
Snipers trained in Ukraine have arrived in Tbilisi, possibly to create a false-flag incident that would justify a coup by the opposition protesting the recent election results, a security source has told TASS news agency.
Georgia held parliamentary elections on Saturday, and the preliminary results showed the ruling Georgian Dream winning over 54% of the vote. The four pro-Western opposition parties have refused to accept the results, claiming the election was somehow “stolen.”
“According to informed official sources, the Westerners, in their attempts to destabilize the internal political situation in Georgia after the October 26 elections and provoke another ‘color revolution’, will stop at nothing,” TASS reported. “Snipers trained in Ukraine have arrived in the republic to organize provocations during mass protests.”
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has accused the ruling party of attempting to “steal” the country’s “European future” and seeking to align with Russia. Such was also the claim of Ukrainian nationalists who launched protests in Kiev in late 2013.
At the height of the protests in the capital several protesters were killed and wounded by gunfire. Nationalists and their Western backers claimed that “government snipers” opened fire on unarmed demonstrators. The incident served as a pretext to forcibly depose the legitimately elected president of Ukraine and declare a new, Western-backed government.
READ MORE: Georgia’s pro-Western president calls for mass street protests
Georgian Dream officials have warned that the opposition intends to foment civil unrest akin to the ‘color revolution’ in Ukraine in 2014. Moscow has said that the current hostilities with Kiev are partly the result of that insurrection a decade ago.
A unit composed of Georgian nationalists, dubbed the “Georgian Legion,” has fought on the Ukrainian side and has been accused of multiple war crimes and violations of the laws of war.
Russia has rejected any accusations that it somehow influenced the Georgian election, noting that there has been overt interference from the West instead. Despite the opposition’s claims of voting fraud, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reported that it observed no systemic irregularities.
