Kobakhidze Accuses 'Deep State' of Undermining Russian Tourism to Georgia
By Messenger Staff
Thursday, August 13, 2026
Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze accused the "Deep State" of working through agents in Georgia to undermine Russian tourism by manufacturing "Russophobia," telling reporters at an August 12 briefing that Georgia and its sovereignty now face "a qualitatively new phase of a storm."
Kobakhidze leaned on the "Deep State" and "Global War Party" narratives that Georgian Dream regularly cites to accuse the West of pushing Georgia toward war with Russia by opening a "second front." He also repeated his claim that government critics, whom he labels "Georgian agentura," only turned against Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, while ignoring Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia.
He listed a string of recent controversies he said were coordinated as part of this campaign: opposition figure Giorgi Baramidze's remarks on the Abkhazia war, the branding of Georgian soldiers as war criminals over accusations they executed prisoners during the Abkhaz conflict, what he called orchestrated anti-Russian sentiment at Black Sea resorts, and fake social media accounts portraying Georgia as hostile to Russian visitors.
"The numerous incidents that have taken place recently are part of a deliberate storm," Kobakhidze said, describing them as an effort to spread "the absurd lie" that Georgian forces shot prisoners during the Abkhazia conflict alongside "artificially orchestrated anti-Russian campaigns" at resorts and fabricated social media posts about conditions for Russian tourists.
He argued the endgame is to drive away Russian tourists until Moscow itself "cuts all economic ties" with Georgia over supposed Russophobia. "The aim of all this, as well as of opening a second front and joining the sanctions imposed on Russia, is to bring down Georgia's economy, stoke a strife between nations, and bring the processes to the military conflict," he said, calling it a threat to Georgia's survival.
Kobakhidze pointed to mixed Georgian-Russian families, the Georgian diaspora in Russia and ethnic Russians in Georgia as reasons to keep politics from spilling into hostility between the two peoples. "We must not allow political disagreements... or the 'Global War Party's' plan to drag Georgia into war... to become a basis for enmity between peoples," he said, adding that peaceful coexistence matters more than "the concrete plans of informal oligarchic forces."
Russians remain Georgia's largest source of tourists, making up 25.1 percent, or 328,900 visitors, of all arrivals in the second quarter of 2026.
