Western attention to the misdeeds of Georgian strongman Bidzina Dze Ivanishvili was raised to a new level at close of last year, when the U.S. State Department formally addressed the founder of the Georgian Dream party for betraying his country’s constitution for personal benefit and the benefit of the Russian Federation.
Ivanishvili was deemed complicit in aiding Russia’s occupation of more than a fifth of the nation he controls as the ruling party’s honorary chairman.
In announcing this latest round of sanctions, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Ivanishvili had implemented “actions and policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in the United States or abroad” to benefit Russia’s war effort.
Western nations had already sanctioned more than 150 representatives of Georgian Dream, but the Ivanishvili sanctions extended to members of the “clan of judges” who endorsed anti-citizen crackdowns, ignored the constitution, and approved other acts against the Georgian people.
Furthermore, they have derailed Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic future, a future the Georgian people overwhelmingly desire and the Georgian constitution mandates.
The U.S., he said, strongly condemns Georgian Dream’s “ongoing and violent repression of Georgian citizens, protesters, members of the media, human rights activists, and opposition figures. Those undermining democracy and human rights in Georgia, he promised, will be held accountable.
Blinken’s actions follow those of a 2020 Republican National Security and Foreign Affairs Task Force, which concluded that Ivanishvili, “the richest man in Georgia, is a close ally of Putin and is involved in destabilizing Georgia on behalf of Russia."
The U.S. sanctions froze any Ivanishvili assets held in the U.S. and opened the door for European nations to follow suit. As a French citizen, Ivanishvili is subject to the laws of both France and the European Union. Many of his massive assets and properties, both onshore and offshore, can be attached to a tighter sanctions regime.
After two U.S.-based polling organizations said the official result of the October 2024 parliamentary election, which saw the re-election of Georgian Dream with 54% of the vote, was statistically impossible, incumbent president Salome Zourabichvili refused to recognize the result and vowed to continue her opposition to voter fraud.
Zourabichvili, who won the presidency in 2018 with Georgian Dream support, had lobbied the European Union successfully to grant Georgia “candidate membership” status in 2023 in hopes of ensuring national security and stability in the Black Sea region. But her actions led to an unsuccessful attempt that year to impeach her for building relationships with Western Europe.
In May 2024, she vetoed a Georgian Dream-backed law that required nongovernmental organizations to register as “foreign agents” if they received more than 20% of their funding from abroad, a move many saw as mimicking Russian efforts to crack down on dissent.
When her veto was overridden, she denounced lawmakers for choosing “Russian slavery.”
Prior to the parliamentary elections, Georgia had been a strong candidate for membership in the European Union. But Georgian Dream startlingly announced that it was suspending efforts to join the EU and renounced any EU financial support until (at least) 2028, ostensibly because the EU had issued a “cascade of insults” to the incoming government.
In the wake of the disputed elections, Georgians taking to the streets in protest were met by riot police. That led Zourabichvili to join the protests, appealing to the police that “your duty is to protect the statehood of this country and its citizens. ... Are you serving Russia or
Georgia?” she asked.
Despite the protests, Mikheil Kavelashvili, the Georgian Dream candidate, was named president on December 14 under a new indirect electoral system, in which only members of the ruling party participated.
International lawyer Robert Amsterdam says that, under Ivanishvili’s regime, public dissent is being crushed through violent crackdowns, inhuman treatment, mass repression, police raids, and widespread detentions — and further attempts to seize the assets of his political enemies.
Ivanishvili, who made billions in Russia in metals and telecoms in the 1990s, has in turn accused foreign intelligence agencies of trying to drive Georgia into Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression.
But much closer to the truth is that his actions are opening the door for the theft of Georgia’s assets by himself and a myriad of Russia-backed oligarchs.
The latest attempt at destroying Georgian freedoms was the show trial of Amsterdam’s client, venture capitalist and former Ivanishvili employee George Bachiashvili, indicted on trumped-up charges that seek to mask a power move by the strongman to enable him to seize ownership of any company that cooperated with his Cartu Bank (or really, anyone he saw as a threat to his power).
Specifically, prosecutor Mikheil Sadradze is brazenly claiming that a loan made to Bachiashvili’s company back in 2015 that has been fully repaid should retroactively be classified as a personal “investment” by the bank’s UBO (Ivanishvili himself), thereby entitling him to sizable financial benefits out of Bachiashvili’s corporate earnings.
Moreover, presiding Tbilisi City Court Judge Giorgi Gelashvili is well known, says Amsterdam, as one of the “clan of judges” and a “committed servant of the oligarch”(Ivanishvili).
Amnesty International is just one of the many global organizations that have sharply condemned Georgia’s failure to protect judicial independence. It is widely understood that judges and prosecutors who refuse Ivanishvili’s instructions can face death threats, loss of employment, or false charges.
Meanwhile, world leaders are raising the ante for Ivanishvili by encouraging further sanctions and the seizure of his assets.
Amsterdam, however, believes that Ivanishvili’s illegal conduct opens his family up to the seizure or arrest of their assets too, which could put effective pressure on him to change his nation’s course.
This nonetheless takes time, and the trial — now the focal point of Russia’s effort to regain total control of Georgia, which won its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union 1991 — is already underway.
Bachiashvili’s real “crime” was his commitment to Western values, favored by at least 79% of Georgians, in addition to the fact that he has been successful without bowing his knee to the Georgian Dream.
It is vital that the West rallies behind this young entrepreneur to show support for four-fifths of Georgians and stop Ivanishvili, along with his cronies, from taking Georgia back under Russian hegemony.
The trial represented the very first time that Ivanishvili, as a direct claimant in a bogus criminal charge, has publicly emerged from behind his curtain of secrecy to use the courts as a tool of extortion and revenge. His barefaced manipulation and orchestration of judges and prosecutors illustrates his belief that he has absolute power to martial all institutions of the state to serve his personal interests.
If Ivanishvili and the “clan of judges” succeed in robbing Bachiashvili of his rightful income, there could be no stopping their campaign to destroy anyone who stands up to their regime.
Time is short, and the work to be done is massive, to prove them wrong — and to protect the nation of Georgia from having its future stolen in the service of Vladimir Putin.
Duggan Flanakin has worn many hats. He worked for Barry Goldwater. He has written for the Washington Free Press, and Christian Restoration Ministries. He has also edited environmental policy newsletters. A senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, he is also a policy analyst for CFACT (Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow). Mr. Flanakin is also a poet, music promoter, and Sunday school teacher. He as an MA from Regent University, in Virginia. Read Flanakin's reports — More Here.