Sandro Bregadze is a Georgian politician. He also serves as a Member of Parliament from 1999 to 2004. From 2014 to 2016 he acted as the deputy minister in the State Ministry on Diaspora Issues of Georgia. In 2017, he founded the nationalist organisation Georgian March, which became a political party in 2020 and partook in legislative elections. The party by many is considered to be the Pro-Russian Party.
The chronology of the Georgian March complies with Russian propaganda, it’s difficult to verify that they are funded by the Kremlin. However, it’s evident that the Georgian March is similar to the xenophobic marches in Ukraine, Russia and Moldova, therefore it is evident that they have similar agendas. And the fact that its leadership is comprised of former politicians with apparent pro-Russian views confirms these doubts.
In 2020, an audio recording went viral in which the leader of the Georgian ultra-right party Georgian March-National Movement Sandro Bregadze allegedly spoke with a member of the Russian Federation Council (an upper house of the Russian parliament) and an ex-employee of the Russian intelligence service, Igor Morozov.
In the recording, Morozov and Bregadze allegedly talked about the import of liquid gas from Russia to Georgia, as many families in Georgia still lack natural gas and the ‘business is likely to work.’ In the recording, Morozov pledges Bregadze to connect him with a Russian businessman with 20 years of experience in the gas field.
In 2020, Sandro Bregadze posted a photo with a description: “Dumb president of Estonia and gay chief of Intelligence Service (on the right) – Georgian March is a destructive power – and when they say this, that’s when I feel we’re the most powerful!!!” on his private account of the social network Facebook. Pro-Kremlin media platform “News-Front Georgia” has published Bregadze’s content on their web page.
Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service’s report 2020 noted “Georgian March” as an example of a Russia-operated propaganda weapon and is mentioned as an extremist and aggressive activity that doesn’t even shy away from assaulting opponents. The document also emphasises the fact that several people connected with Russia and its influence mechanisms are among the leaders of the “Georgian March”.
