Kirtskhalia Accuses RSF of Acting Under 'Deep State' Influence After Ivanishvili Named Press Freedom Predator Again
By Messenger Staff
Wednesday, November 4, 2026
Georgian Dream parliamentary majority leader Irakli Kirtskhalia held a briefing to accuse Reporters Without Borders (RSF) of operating under the influence of the "Deep State" and "Global War Party." The Paris-based media watchdog included party founder and honorary chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili on its Press Freedom Predators list for the second year in a row.
At the November 3 briefing, Kirtskhalia used the "Deep State" and "Global War Party" terms interchangeably. Georgian Dream uses them to claim the West is under the influence of informal oligarchic forces. He also claimed Georgia is "one of the world's leading countries in terms of both media freedom and democracy."
"Our political team believes it is important to use the absurdity published by one of the instruments controlled by the Global War Party to illustrate how their mechanisms operate against leaders and national forces that do not act in the interests of informal oligarchic powers, but instead choose peace over war, freedom over obedience, and sovereignty over acting under the dictates of foreign influence," Kirtskhalia said, claiming Ivanishvili was "deliberately included" in the list.
The remarks followed RSF's November 2 publication of its 2026 Press Freedom Predators list, on which Ivanishvili retained his place after also appearing on the 2025 list. He is in the economic category, which covers figures and entities that use financial pressure to weaken independent media, affect their funding and undermine their editorial independence. Others in the category include the tech companies Alphabet and Meta, French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, Kremlin ally and communications strategist Vladimir Tabak, and Kenyan President William Ruto. The wider list also includes Elon Musk, Robert Fico and Margarita Simonyan, and US President Donald Trump was added this year.
Kirtskhalia described Ivanishvili's inclusion as "nothing other than the price being paid" for refusing to sacrifice Georgia's peace, national interests and sovereignty to the "Global War Party." He said the Georgian Dream founder was preventing the country from becoming "a sacrificial pawn on the grand political chessboard."
"It appears that the logic of the 'Deep State' is as follows: the more colossal the lie, the more absurd and implausible the accusation, and the more its brazenness exceeds all conceivable limits, the more convincing it is supposed to sound," he said.
Comparing the situation to the rule of former president Mikheil Saakashvili and his United National Movement (2004-2012), Kirtskhalia claimed that "every major media outlet capable of broadcasting nationwide" was under the complete control of a single political party. He also accused Saakashvili of acting as an agent of foreign powers and said international organizations overlooked alleged repression under his government. "This example clearly demonstrates how selective the assessments of international actors operating under the influence of informal oligarchic powers are," he said.
Defending the current media environment, Kirtskhalia said it was so pluralistic that outlets could "express the harshest criticism of the authorities and level any accusation whatsoever without providing a single argument to support it." He said an objective assessment shows Georgia is one of the world's leading countries in both media freedom and democracy.
