Ukrainian official Lortkipanidze rejects Tbilisi’s allegations on organizing unrest

Shota Kakhidze, a lawyer of Giorgi Lortkipanidze, a former Georgian law enforcement official who currently serves as the Deputy Head of Military Intelligence of Ukraine, on Monday rejected the allegations by the Georgian State Security Service on allegedly organizing an unrest in Georgia this fall. 

 

“Lortkipanidze has no contact with Georgian politics”, Kakhidze claimed, adding “today’s statement by GSSS is complete delusion. He has not been in the country for eight years, he is being persecuted by the Georgian authorities on political grounds”. 

 

GSSS claimed along with Lortkipanidze, Mikheil Baturin, a former member of former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s bodyguard, and Mamuka Mamulashvili, the commander of the Georgian Legion fighting in Ukraine, were behind the alleged scenario. 

 

It said the group was expecting the EU’s rejection of Georgia’s candidacy later this year to spark “civil confrontation” and “bloody” exchange between the law enforcement and demonstrators in Tbilisi angered by the bloc’s refusal, and claimed the scheme was funded “from abroad”. 

 

Lortkipanidze was in 2021 charged in Georgia for aiding Saakashvili to illegally cross into Georgia from Ukraine earlier that year, ahead of domestic municipal elections, to “organize a coup”.