Georgian Parliament Speaker says BBC’s article shows how external task givers, internal agents have worked together to spread false narrative

Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Monday said the recent article published by the BBC showed how external task givers, on the one hand, and agents within the country, on the other hand, were working together in an orchestrated manner to spread a false narrative.

Papuashvili responded to an article published by BBC on Monday alleging that the Georgian Dream Government used a World War I-era chemical agent during recent protests.

Speaking to journalists in India, Papuashvili noted that this represented a hybrid warfare tactic being used against Georgia.

“I think that what emerged after the publication of this story is more important than one story. We saw firsthand the scheme - how the spread of false narratives is orchestrated. We see firsthand, on the one hand, how external task givers and, on the other hand, agents inside the country worked together, orchestrated to spread a false narrative, which is a useful process overall, because everyone is ultimately revealed - both the agents and those who gave them tasks. Today, we saw exactly by name and surname and by face who are those who are working against Georgia”, the Speaker said.

“This showed that these are the tactics of hybrid warfare that are being used against Georgia, and among them, this story and the falsehood that was fabricated with this story serve exactly that purpose. This is exactly the tactics of hybrid warfare, in this case, this BBC story was used as a weapon, although the clients and their goals were very clearly revealed by the responses and the surrounding with the situation we saw after this story”, he concluded.