The president of the fiercely pro-Western nation of Georgia has called on its people to take to the streets after Vladimir Putin ‘stole’ its election.
Salome Zourabichvili said her countrymen are ‘victims of a Russian special operation’ that saw the Moscow-friendly government ‘rig’ the vote.
She refused to recognise the result and told supporters to rise up tomorrow declaring: ‘This was a total rigging, a total robbery of your votes.’
Boris Johnson also hit out at the ruling Georgian Dream party – run by a shadowy billionaire oligarch who made his fortune in Russia – for doing Moscow’s dirty work.
‘The picture emerging from Georgia is clear – yesterday’s election has been stolen by Putin’s puppet government in Tbilisi,’ the former British PM said last night.
‘I back the people of Georgia as they stand up for their freedom, their rights and their future.’
Pro government thugs were seen stuffing ballots, beating up election monitors and buying votes across the Black Sea nation which borders Russia on Saturday.
Despite this independent polling suggested a coalition of opposition parties still won the election with Georgian Dream only gaining about 40 per cent of votes.
But yesterday the country’s Central Election Committee (CEC) declared the ruling party had gained a majority with 54 per cent.
Russian meddling has been reported in the CEC’s IT infrastructure in recent weeks and critics say the organisation has been corrupted by the Georgian state.
Bidzina Ivanishvili, the pro-Russian oligarch who founded Georgian Dream, declared victory before the polls had even closed.
Hungarian strongman PM Viktor Orban, known as Putin’s man in Europe, congratulated him an hour before the preliminary results were announced.
He will arrive in the capital, Tbilisi, today, the first foreign dignitary to visit since the result – indicating the dark turn the country has taken.
Georgia is the most pro-Western country in the region, with over 80 per cent backing EU and NATO membership.
It is known by every country in the post-Soviet sphere as a beacon of hope, resisting Russian influence long before Ukraine and stamping out corruption.
Georgian people have a shed more blood than any other foreign nation in Ukraine and it was biggest contributor of troops per capita to NATO in Afghanistan.
For Putin to bring Tbilisi back under his heel without firing a shot would represent perhaps the greatest foreign policy victory of his despotic reign.
It is a major wake-up call to the West to step up its support for Ukraine and stop emboldening Putin and his cronies ahead of a possible Donald Trump presidential victory.
Giorgi Badridze, former Georgian ambassador to the UK, told the Mail: ‘The West has never understood Russian hybrid war in principle – they do not understand the rules of the Kremlin game.
‘Whenever Russia launches into yet another conflict, the first instinct always is to appease, not to resist. In every case the Kremlin becomes emboldened, belligerent, greedier.
‘The reverberations of Russia’s victory will be felt not just by Georgians and Russia’s other neighbours, but globally.’
Georgian Dream has ruled since 2012 and ostensibly claimed to favour Western integration while quietly increasing trade with Russia – taboo in the country following its brief war with Moscow in 2008.
Finally, just days after the Ukraine invasion, the party revealed its hand and began pumping out pro-Putin propaganda and anti-Western rhetoric.
Last summer it introduced a raft of draconian legislation to stifle opposition and pave the way for the country to become a ‘Belarus 2.0’ after this election.
It sparked the biggest protests in the country’s modern history but they failed to turn the tide and were greeted with savage brutality from government thugs.
Lincoln Mitchell, a political analyst who once advised Ivanishvili, told the Mail: ‘The only way Georgian Dream can remain in power and turn this fraudulent victory into an ability to govern is by cracking down more on media and political freedom.
‘Because Georgia has a decades old history of these kinds freedoms, this will not be so easy.’