European Parliament Report Condemns Russian Influence on Georgia

A Euro­pean Par­lia­ment report on Russ­ian influ­ence in Geor­gia has result­ed in one of the strongest con­dem­na­tions in EU enlarge­ment his­to­ry, with 490 MEPs vot­ing to deplore the coun­try’s rule of law back­slid­ing and grow­ing Moscow inter­fer­ence in the Geor­gian Dream par­ty. On 10 July 2025, Euronews report­ed that Euro­pean law­mak­ers adopt­ed a scathing progress report ques­tion­ing the legit­i­ma­cy of Geor­gia’s gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing alleged­ly rigged Octo­ber 2024 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions and sys­tem­at­ic crack­downs on pro-EU oppo­si­tion forces.

The arti­cle begins:

The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment approved this Wednes­day one of the strongest-word­ed doc­u­ments in the his­to­ry of enlarge­ment: the progress report on Geor­gia’s acces­sion process. With 490 votes in favour and 147 against, EU law­mak­ers deplored “the back­slid­ing of the rule of law as well as the grow­ing Russ­ian influ­ence on the rul­ing par­ty, Geor­gian Dream, led by bil­lion­aire Bidz­i­na Ivan­ishvili.” This is the first report on Geor­gia as an EU can­di­date coun­try, based on the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion’s tech­ni­cal and polit­i­cal assess­ments from 2023 and 2024. The doc­u­ment adopt­ed in the Stras­bourg hemi­cy­cle stressed the lack of legit­i­ma­cy of what it calls “the self-pro­claimed author­i­ties estab­lished by the Geor­gian Dream par­ty fol­low­ing the rigged par­lia­men­tary elec­tions of 26 Octo­ber 2024.”

          Read more: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/07/10/georgia-faces-european-parliaments-criticism-over-rule-of-law-and-russian-influence

Key Points

• The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment vot­ed 490 to 147 to con­demn the Geor­gian Dream par­ty’s rule of law back­slid­ing and grow­ing Russ­ian influ­ence under bil­lion­aire Bidz­i­na Ivanishvili
• MEPs ques­tioned the legit­i­ma­cy of Geor­gia’s gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing alleged­ly rigged Octo­ber 2024 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions that sparked six months of anti-gov­ern­ment protests
• At least six oppo­si­tion fig­ures were arrest­ed in recent months, includ­ing politi­cian Gior­gi Vashadze sen­tenced to eight months for refus­ing to tes­ti­fy in a par­lia­men­tary inquiry
• Despite EU can­di­da­cy sta­tus, Geor­gia has not aligned with EU sanc­tions against Rus­sia and passed a for­eign agents law restrict­ing NGO activ­i­ties in 2024

Georgia  & Russian Influence Operations: Moscow’s Political Takeover

Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions in Geor­gia have inten­si­fied dra­mat­i­cal­ly since 2024, with Moscow achiev­ing what US intel­li­gence ana­lysts describe as soft annex­a­tion through polit­i­cal means fol­low­ing the Geor­gian Dream par­ty’s con­tro­ver­sial elec­toral vic­to­ry in Octo­ber 2024. The rul­ing par­ty has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly adopt­ed Krem­lin-style tac­tics, includ­ing coor­di­nat­ed attacks on West­ern diplo­mats through social media cam­paigns and web­sites designed to silence crit­i­cism of the gov­ern­men­t’s increas­ing­ly author­i­tar­i­an poli­cies. This oper­a­tional frame­work extends beyond domes­tic manip­u­la­tion to broad­er region­al desta­bi­liza­tion efforts, with Rus­sia deploy­ing sophis­ti­cat­ed elec­tion inter­fer­ence tac­tics across East­ern Europe, includ­ing coor­di­nat­ed dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns, illic­it financ­ing, and dig­i­tal manip­u­la­tion tar­get­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic process­es in Geor­gia, Roma­nia, and Moldova.

The suc­cess of these influ­ence oper­a­tions rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant geopo­lit­i­cal shift, as Moscow has effec­tive­ly reversed Geor­gia’s pro-West­ern tra­jec­to­ry while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly los­ing ground in Arme­nia, demon­strat­ing Rus­si­a’s strate­gic pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of main­tain­ing dom­i­nance in the South Cau­ca­sus through a com­bi­na­tion of polit­i­cal infil­tra­tion, eco­nom­ic lever­age, and infor­ma­tion war­fare designed to under­mine demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions and West­ern alignment.

Exter­nal References:

1. As democ­ra­cy in Geor­gia col­laps­es, Rus­sia, Chi­na and Iran see an opening

2. Russ­ian Influ­ence Oper­a­tions in Geor­gia: A Threat to Democ­ra­cy and Region­al Stability

3. Geor­gia faces Euro­pean Par­lia­men­t’s crit­i­cism over rule of law and grow­ing Russ­ian influence

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.