Georgia’s billionaire leader Bidzina Ivanishvili once tellingly said that his favorite fictional character is Natsarkekia, a famous trickster from Georgian folklore. The character, who dupes and bullies giants, seems to have served as a role model for Ivanishvili’s dealings with world powers like the United States. 

The character’s name almost literally translates as Cinderella, except Natsarkekia is a guy and a-good-for-nothing one at that. There is no evil stepmother forcing him to poke cinders in a fireplace all day – hence the name – he does it for fun. 

In the tale’s best-known scene, Natsarkekia challenges a giant to a physical strength contest and suggests they both squeeze water from a stone. Natsarkekia covertly pulls out a block of fresh cheese and, pretending it’s a stone, squeezes juice from it. A few tricks like that eventually convince the goofy giant of Natsarkekia’s superior powers. As the giant scurries off, Natsarkekia takes over his resources and goes back to poking cinders. 

Ivanishvili has pulled a few tricks of his own along his political path to power and has been pretty open about it. “I did a little trick,” Ivanishvili said, laughing giddily, on the day of the 2012 parliamentary elections. The outcome of those elections, of course, brought him to power, toppling Georgia’s political giant of that era, former president Mikhail Saakashvili. 

The next trick Ivanishvili did was to step down as a prime minister the following year and declare that he was quitting politics for good, though in fact he continued calling the shots from behind the scenes. Poorly hidden, he kept telling the confused Georgian public and international community that he was not there and that everyone should look the other way. 

American and European diplomats eventually convinced Ivanishvili to end the charade and own up to his role as the nation’s real leader. Ivanishvili returned to take up a formal political position, only to quit again. He repeated the trick several times, appearing and disappearing like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. 

Georgia’s main partners, the United States and European Union, were vexed by this odd hide-and-seek game, but otherwise were relatively content with the nation’s progress. Democratic freedoms and the human rights environment improved initially under Ivanishvili, and Georgia was making headway in its efforts to integrate into the Western community. 

“We’ve had an extraordinary access to Ivanishvili and to all senior layers of government,” a former American official told Eurasianet, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The US army and marines were doing joint trainings with the Georgians troops. Vice President [Mike] Pence came to visit Tbilisi,” the former official said. “It was all going really well.” 

Everything changed, when Russia attempted its blitz in Ukraine in 2022. It seemed that Natsarkekia-style politics reappeared in Georgia, this time in the realm of foreign policy.

The “Bad” Ambassadors 

A few weeks before Russian fighter jets took off for Kyiv, US ambassador Kelly Degnan was having a luncheon with the press corps in Tbilisi. As was their wont, the seasoned hacks at the table aired their grievances with Georgian authorities. The ambassador listened, but also tried to highlight the accomplishments of Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream party. 

It had been par for the course for Georgian journalists and human rights watchdogs to complain to Western, especially American diplomats about encroachments on democratic freedoms. The Americans would take up these issues with the Georgian authorities. As they pushed hard to make their country America’s best post-Soviet friend, Georgian leaders often had to rein in their autocratic urges out of deference to the US government. 

Like her predecessors, Degnan did her share to help keep democratization process on track in Georgia, but she was also perhaps the most soft-spoken US envoy to that point, and was keen to dwell on the positive to help Georgia move forward. Her style provided an especially salient contrast to the fierce character-assassination campaign that Georgian Dream launched against her after Russia’s attack on Ukraine shook the entire region. 

Not long after Degnan tried to show the reporters the things that Georgian Dream did right, the ruling party began accusing the ambassador of attempting to drag Georgia into a war with Russia. Over the next few months, Georgian Dream’s rhetoric toward the ambassador grew increasingly and inexplicably aggressive. 

Soon enough, even the mildest remark on Georgia’s democratic shortcomings, such as issues with judicial independence, provoked a barrage of accusations from Georgian officials. The ambassador was routinely accused of meddling in Georgia’s domestic affairs and trying to trigger a conflict with Moscow. Similar accusations were leveled against European officials, domestic opposition parties and civil society groups. 

Even as Degnan, along with the EU’s ambassador, Carl Hartzell, rotated out of the country, Georgian Dream kept talking about how horrible the two diplomats supposedly were. “This was meant as a warning to new ambassadors to stay out of Georgian Dream’s way,” commented Eka Akobia, the dean of the Caucasus School of Governance and a former foreign ministry official. 

The Global War Party

The White House was slow to respond to attacks on its envoy. Like Natsarkekia’s giant, Washington was befuddled by the sudden, hostile maneuvers from the longtime ally. “It took them time to speak up, but the US simply had too many balls in the air around the world,” commented the former American official. 

The confusion grew as Ivanishvili and Georgian Dream began talking of a “global war party,” a supposedly Strangelovian syndicate bent on spreading doom and destruction around the world. Anyone who uttered a word of criticism of Ivanishvili and his government was declared to be a warmonger and a member of this deep-state network. So, it was not about a couple of bad diplomats anymore. 

Georgia’s top leaders began arguing with this imaginary antagonist at their press briefings, telling journalists that this force – invisible to everyone else – was right there, hiding in the power corridors of Washington and Brussels. 

“This is like a Reddit page came to life,” a startled US Assistant State Secretary James O’Brien told reporters in Tbilisi on May 14 this year, after meeting Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and hearing the stories of the global war party from him. 

While spreading conspiracy theories about the West, Georgian Dream harassed civil society groups and the LGBTQ community at home, adopting repressive laws. Ivanishvili even threatened to ban all opposition parties and expropriate their parliamentary seats. This compelled the EU to freeze Georgia’s progress toward membership and led to growing frustration in the US.

“Outside Europe, Georgia was the only success story in the global democratization efforts of the US,” Akobia said. “All of it came crumbling down in just a couple of years.” 

America Strikes Back 

American officials struggled to diagnose Ivanishvili and explain his latest streak of tricks. Loyalists of the Georgian opposition want to believe the billionaire is simply controlled by Moscow and, as such, is forced to reorient Georgia’s external partnerships 90 degrees north. Not everyone is convinced. 

“I personally don’t believe Ivanishvili is Russia’s asset,” the former American official told Eurasianet. “I believe that all of this is about securing the continuity of his regime.” 

As a longtime leader, Ivanishvili overstayed his welcome with many Georgians. A democratic election and the democratic reforms that Americans and Europeans pushed for became an increasing threat to Ivanishvili’s continued hold to power, the American observer said. 

Another former American official with extensive knowledge of US-Georgian affairs told Eurasianet that the Russian-Ukrainian war gave Ivanishvili the confidence to push the US and EU into accepting Georgia as a partner, whether the country was a real democracy or not. “He thought that Americans and Europeans would cling to whatever foothold they could get in the region,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “He thought he could force everyone to play by his rules.” 

Increasingly frustrated with Tbilisi, Washington eventually began slapping sanctions on select Georgian officials and suspending assistance programs in Georgia. Current US Ambassador Robin Dunnigan has grown increasingly vocal, and recently called out Ivanishvili for putting his personal interests above the interests of his nation. 

With Ivanishvili refusing to meet Dunnigan or other American diplomats, the US Embassy began taking swipes at him via Facebook. “Democracies don’t ban the opposition,” said the embassy in a series of posts that criticize Ivanishvili’s moves and rhetoric.

The American ex-officials who spoke to Eurasianet think that ties with Georgia are bound to get worse as long as Ivanishvili is in power. Their best bet is that Georgians, who have also grown tired of Ivanishvili’s tricks, will push him out of power via the parliamentary elections that are scheduled for October 26.