Shota Apkhaidze is a Georgian pro-Russian activist known for his anti-Western and pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Over the years, he has been affiliated with several Kremlin-linked organizations and media outlets.
Apkhaidze has appeared in several propaganda publications connected to the Kremlin, including Sputnik, Geworld.ge, Eurasia Daily, RIA Novosti, and News Front. He was allegedly the editor of the Georgian-language version of News Front, which began operating in 2019. This information became public through a News Front Georgia article dated February 10, 2020. In July 2017, Russian propaganda media portrayed Apkhaidze as one of the organizers of the xenophobic and anti-immigration rally known as the “Georgian March.”
Prior to 2010, Apkhaidze published opinion pieces in Malkhaz Gulashvili’s media holding Georgian Times. At the same time, he was a member of the “People’s Orthodox Movement,” founded in 2010, and led its youth wing, “Tsin” (“Forward”). On May 7, 2010, Afkhidze was arrested for breaking into the TV station “Kavkasia” alongside members of the “Union of Orthodox Parents” and the “People’s Orthodox Movement”, an incident motivated by hate and marked by violent behavior. In 2012, following a change in government, he was granted the status of a political prisoner and released from prison.
In 2013, Apkhaidze participated in an event organized by “Caucasian Cooperation,” during which he claimed that “Saakashvili committed genocide against the Ossetian people in 2008.” In 2015, he founded the “Center for Islamic Studies of the Caucasus.”
In 2019, Afkhidze appeared as a journalist on Russia’s Ministry of Defense-owned TV channel “Zvezda”. The program “Open Air” (“Открытый эфир”) relied on a report prepared by Afkhidze, which echoed Kremlin conspiracy theories about human organ trafficking during military operations in eastern Ukraine.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Apkhaidze made several anti-Ukrainian statements. In interviews with various Russian media outlets, he accused the Ukrainian government and President Zelensky of attempting to open a second military front in Georgia and of trying to overthrow the Georgian government.
On January 15, 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky approved a list of sanctions proposed by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, which included Apkhaidze. The sanctions entailed a ban on entering Ukraine, freezing of assets, and restrictions on financial operations.
