Lelo Says Zakharova's Remarks Confirm Georgia's Growing Dependence on Russia
By Messenger Staff
Monday, June 1, 2026
When Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed that Georgia had chosen a "multi-vector policy" rather than a confrontational course toward Moscow, describing it as Georgia's own sovereign decision made despite what she called "the EU's brutal attempts to impose a confrontational course on Georgia in relation to Moscow," Lelo-Strong Georgia leader Grigol Gegelia said she had unwittingly proven exactly what his party had been arguing for years.
Gegelia said Zakharova's framing of Georgian Dream's approach as a free choice was in reality an acknowledgment of Georgia's deepening drift toward Russia under the ruling party. "Zakharova, a propagandist of the fascist regime, very clearly confirms what we all say and see, which is that under the rule of the Dream regime, Georgia is immeasurably more economically dependent on Russia, immeasurably more politically tied to the Russian fascist federation, and increasingly less independent and with fewer prospects in the direction of the Euro-Atlantic space," he said.
He said the pattern was consistent across every measurable indicator: whatever Georgia had lost in its relationship with the West had been gained in its relationship with Russia and the broader CIS space. To support this, he pointed to trade data cited by the European Parliament, which showed that between 2016 and 2022, Georgia's trade with the EU halved while its trade with Russia and the CIS doubled over the same six-year period. "Everything that has decreased in the Euro-Atlantic direction has increased in the Russian-CIS direction, and Lelo-Strong Georgia has been talking about this for several years now," he said.
Gegelia described Georgian Dream as a "Russian, shameful, anti-Georgian regime" that had systematically worked to bind Georgia to the Russian orbit, and said Zakharova's remarks were simply the latest confirmation of what that process looked like from Moscow's perspective. "All this proves that under this regime, it did its best to turn Georgia into a puppet state, completely tied to the Russian orbit," he said.
