Kiev’s ‘Georgian Legion’ Plans 2014 Euromaidan in Tbilisi, Georgia This Fall
Sept. 21, 2023, (EIRNS)—The State Security Service of Georgia (SSS) of issued a release on Sept. 18 that that country faces the threat of violent unrest orchestrated by the inner circle of former President Mikheil Saakashvili. The State Security details that the coup plotters plan, in the next one to three months, the “violent overthrow” of the Georgian government, using Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan coup as a model.
They cite as a likely trigger an upcoming European Union report rejecting Georgia’s candidacy: “The expectations of the conspirators planning to topple the state government are tailored to the circumstance in which the released [EU] conclusion will be negative, which will create a fertile ground for civil unrest and further riots through both information networks at their disposal, as well as by artificially labeling the government as ‘pro-Russian.’ “
The State Security names “Mamuka Mamulashvili, commander of the ‘Georgian Legion’ operating in Ukraine”—the predecessor of the Azov Battalion. It was founded from Mamulashvili’s recruitment of Georgian snipers for a special mission on Kiev’s Maidan in February 2014, to set the Berkut police and the demonstrators violently against each other, by having the Georgian Legion shoot at both sides from afar. Their ruthless provocateur operation destroyed the peace agreement negotiated by Ukraine’s elected government of Viktor Yanukovych and the leaders of the demonstrators. Mamulashvili’s Georgian Legion deployed from there into the Donbass. He is infamous in the last year for refusing to take Russian military prisoners and, instead, simply executing them. He has proclaimed as much, and there is video evidence that he meant what he said.
Mamulashvili had been close to Georgia’s then-head of state Mikheil Saakashvili. The two deployed to Kiev and the Maidan, and Saakashvili evidently assigned Mamulashvili to recruit a team of snipers from members of their security force back in Tbilisi. Also named by Tbilisi’s State Security as a conspirator in the planned coup in Georgia is Giorgi Lortkiphanidze, the former deputy of Georgia’s ex-Minister of Internal Affairs, who took over as the deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence in 2022.
The State Security Service report further writes: “[T]he mentioned plan is going to be carried out through coordination and financial support of foreign countries. According to confirmed and verified information, quite a big group of individuals of Georgian origin fighting in Ukraine, as well as part of Georgian young people ... will be used for the implementation of the plan elaborated by Giorgi Lortkiphanidze, who are currently trained/retrained in the vicinities of Poland-Ukraine state border. ... [T]he youth group ... are supposed to participate in the revolutionary scenario....”
State Security cited, among other tactics, their occupying Tbilisi with tent camps, using barricades around government buildings, and detonating bombs against civilians to spark clashes with police, “it is verified that the organizers are considering the implementation of a scenario in Georgia, which is similar to the “Euromaidan” held in Ukraine in 2014”—which EIR considers is designed to further embroil Russia on its borders. Such an operation may be the only way for the “permanent war” crowd to continue their attempt to strategically break Russia, if Ukraine’s “counteroffensive” should drain the country faster than expected.
