On April 6, Salome Zourabichvili, the fifth President of Georgia, delivered a stark warning at a rally organized by the French Renaissance party in Paris. She cautioned that Russia’s evolving hybrid strategy in Georgia poses a significant geopolitical threat to Europe if the European Union fails to act decisively to protect a nation it recently recognized as a candidate for membership.

Speaking to the audience, Zourabichvili received enthusiastic applause as she urged the European Union to confront authoritarian tendencies within its own sphere. "The European Union must not stand idly by as a country—Georgia—which it granted candidate status less than a year ago, transforms into a model of totalitarian dictatorship within a single year," she stressed. She called on the EU to demonstrate its resolve, declaring, "It can make decisions, it can maintain a coherent policy, and it can speak out—proving it is not beholden to a handful of countries already sliding toward totalitarianism." Her remarks appeared to subtly reference Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, which she implied is obstructing EU efforts concerning the Georgian Dream party.

Zourabichvili argued that, with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine faltering, Russia has shifted its focus to Georgia as a testing ground for a "new strategy" that is less costly and avoids direct military confrontation. She described Georgia as a "laboratory" for this hybrid approach, pointing to "sophisticated" electoral manipulation and the influence of a "proxy oligarch"—an apparent allusion to Bidzina Ivanishvili—through whom she alleged Russia exerts near-total control over Georgia’s state institutions. "This hybrid strategy endangers us all. We are living it now as Georgia’s tragedy," she warned, vowing, "I will remain the President of this people until the end."