News agency claims ‘Ukraine-trained snipers’ present in Georgia
TASS news agency has claimed that snipers trained in Ukraine have arrived in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. A source told the Russian agency that the alleged group was sent to trigger a false-flag incident that would justify a coup by the pro-Western opposition, which has disputed the recent election results.
The preliminary results of Georgia’s parliamentary elections on Saturday showed the ruling Georgian Dream party winning over 54% of the vote. Four pro-Western opposition parties have refused to accept the results.
TASS cited its source as saying: “Westerners, in their attempts to shake up the internal political situation in Georgia after the elections and provoke another color revolution, don’t shy away from any methods: snipers trained in Ukraine have arrived in the country.”
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has accused the ruling party of attempting to “steal” the country’s “European future” and seeking to align with Russia.
Her claim is similar to complaints by pro-Western demonstrators in Kiev in 2013. At the height of the Maidan protests, dozens of people were killed and wounded by gunfire. Nationalists and their Western backers claimed that “government snipers” opened fire on unarmed demonstrators. This has never been proven and subsequent independent investigations have claimed it was a false flag.
The incident served as a pretext to forcibly depose the legitimately elected president of Ukraine and declare a new, Western-backed government.
Georgian Dream party officials have warned that the opposition intends to foment civil unrest akin to the 2013-14 protest and coup in Kiev. Russia has said that the current conflict with Ukraine is the result of that insurrection a decade ago.
A unit composed of Georgian nationalists, dubbed the ‘Georgian Legion’, has fought on the Ukrainian side of the conflict with Russia and has been accused of war crimes.
Russia has dismissed accusations that it influenced the Georgian election, arguing that there has been overt interference from the West instead. Despite the opposition’s claims of vote fraud, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported that it observed no systemic irregularities.
