On August 9-10, Facebook user Giorgi Chimakadze, who has frequently spread disinformation in the past, and an anonymous Facebook account named Mikheil Mzetunakhavi published a fragment from an interview with Levan Sanikidze, a member of the United National Movement party. In the excerpt, Sanikidze says the phrase: “I’ll never forget, I think it was Mamuka Khazaradze’s statement – ‘What do the Americans want in the Black Sea?’”
A video manipulation about Mamuka Khazaradze from Levan Sanikidze’s interview is being circulated. The full interview shows that Sanikidze was recalling something Khazaradze had said regarding a meeting with Bidzina Ivanishvili. Sanikidze does not claim the phrase originated from Khazaradze himself. According to Sanikidze, Ivanishvili asked Khazaradze what the Americans wanted in the Black Sea.
The video shared on Facebook creates the false impression that Levan Sanikidze was recalling the words of Mamuka Khazaradze, leader of the Lelo for Georgia party, and that Khazaradze is against the presence of Americans in the Black Sea.
The excerpt was cut from the program Daily News on TV Pirveli. On the August 9 broadcast, Levan Sanikidze, invited as a guest, discussed the peace agreement reached between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the resulting changes in the region. Sanikidze also touched on Georgia’s situation in this context, stating that Russian and Iranian influence remains only in Georgia, which he described as the government’s responsibility.
The phrase heard in the video circulating on Facebook comes precisely from this segment. Sanikidze was recalling Khazaradze’s account of a private conversation with Bidzina Ivanishvili, in which Ivanishvili asked him what American ships wanted in the Black Sea.
Levan Sanikidze: “Why are we in this situation? Because the country is governed by a primitive traitor, among other things. I’ll never forget, I think it was Mamuka Khazaradze’s statement – ‘What do the Americans want in the Black Sea?’ Well then, let Bidzina Ivanisvhili say now: What do Americans want in Zangezur?”
Host: “You mean Bidzina Ivanishvili, I assume?”
Levan Sanikidze: “Yes. Mamuka Khazaradze said that when there was a dispute about the Anaklia port, Ivanishvili told him, ‘What do American ships want in the Black Sea?’ This is the level of primitiveness we are dealing with.”
In 2019, Mamuka Khazaradze stated that during a meeting with Bidzina Ivanishvili in 2017, Ivanishvili advised him to abandon the deep-water Anaklia port project:
“I will never forget a very unpleasant conversation with Bidzina Ivanishvili in 2017. This was when we had already invested 20 million in the port’s previous development program. Geological studies were underway, foreigners had arrived, and so on. I was constantly keeping him [Bidzina Ivanishvili] informed. We met at his residence, and the conversation started very heavily. He told me, ‘Let’s drop Anaklia; it seems you don’t understand geopolitics.’ Then he said something like this: ‘What do the Americans want in the Black Sea?!’”
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