Opinion: 'There is no longer peace in Georgia'
Opinion on the latest events in Georgia
Professor at Ilia State University and literary critic Zaal Andronikashvili comments on the events that unfolded in Georgia on 22 July 2026, including the arrest of a journalist, a shooting in central Tbilisi, and an attack on an opposition stand-up comedian.
He writes that there is no longer peace in Georgia and blames Bidzina Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream party.
Journalist Vakho Sanaia was sentenced to 14 days of administrative detention over satirical social media posts about members of the Georgian Dream party. A shooting took place in central Tbilisi on 22 July, leaving four people injured, including two minors. One of the minors later died in hospital. Comedian Onise Okriashvili, a critic of the government, was brutally beaten at his home. Before the attack, he had been the target of a disinformation campaign on pro-government television channels.
Zaal Andronikashvili: “It is important to find the right name for what is happening in Georgia. The situation is new, and historical parallels apply only in part.
Since at least 2019, during the ‘Gavrilov Night’ protests, Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian Dream party have done everything possible to prevent a peaceful transfer of power. Some scholars describe this as a ‘coup from above’.”
This “coup from above” is not peaceful.
Anyone who believes that Georgia is at peace today is deeply mistaken. Beyond dragging Georgia into a geopolitical confrontation on Russia’s side — at an enormous cost to the country — Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian Dream party are waging an asymmetric, hybrid civil war against the overwhelming majority of the Georgian population.
Part of this hybrid civil war consists of unlawful restrictive legislation enforced only against certain groups of citizens and against civil society as a whole.
There is also financial repression aimed at depriving opponents of the regime of their livelihoods, as well as the deliberate destruction of education and culture. Alongside this come aggression, hopelessness, and an absence of love and empathy elevated to the level of state policy.
There is micro-level violence — encouraging crime and fostering a culture of impunity that ultimately erodes trust in the law, the justice system, and the very idea of justice. There is macro-level violence carried out by the police and special forces, along with many other elements.
“I repeat: this is not peace.
It is a hybrid civil war waged by a regime that controls the police, the legislature and the country’s financial resources against the majority of Georgia’s population, especially its most active citizens. Its goal is to suppress, subjugate and ultimately enslave them.
The other side has nothing but the truth and peaceful resistance. But the truth is a powerful, almost invincible weapon — and it can never truly be defeated.
Despite this asymmetric civil war, whose domestic objective is to cement the regime permanently in power and make the current government irreplaceable, while its foreign policy goal is to sever Georgia once and for all from the European values-based community and turn it into a banana republic under a quasi-colonial regime, Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian Dream party have failed to win this unequal conflict.
Peaceful resistance is alive. The people have not been broken. They have not been intimidated.
Those who support the regime today, or choose silent complicity, should look at Russia.
People there also believed that if they kept quiet and buried their heads in a bowl of caviar, none of it would affect them. Other people’s children would die, someone else would go to prison, someone else’s life would be ruined. Perhaps someone would stop greeting them, but they could live with that.
In reality, supporting injustice always comes at a price. Injustice and lawlessness may begin by targeting only selected groups, but they very quickly spread to everyone.
By supporting injustice, you create an environment in which that injustice will inevitably reach you in one form or another.
But people are willing to ignore it until it affects them personally. There is a powerful metaphor in the Gospel of Matthew (26:52): ‘All who draw the sword will die by the sword.’ This is not really about the sword itself, but more broadly about the laws of social reality and their universal nature.
There is no peace in Georgia. Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian Dream party are responsible for that.”
Opinion on the latest events in Georgia
