Minister of Trade Ömer Bolat announced the foreign trade data for October at a meeting held for this purpose. Bolat said, “In October 2025, our goods exports increased by 2.3 percent and reached a full 24 billion dollars. Thus, the highest October record has been broken. We passed the 270-billion-dollar threshold. By reaching 270.2 billion dollars, we also surpassed the annual goods export record overall.”
Day: November 6, 2025
Georgia has opened a criminal case against eight opposition leaders: Mikheil Saakashvili, Giorgi Vashadze, Nika Gvaramia, Nika Melia, Zurab Girchi Japaridze, Elene Khoshtaria, Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze.
The case was launched jointly by the general prosecutor’s office, the state security service and the interior ministry. The officials are accused of “crimes against the state” including sabotage, aiding hostile foreign activity, financing actions against the constitutional order and national security, and calling for the violent overthrow of the government.
The prosecution has requested bail for Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze and asked for a preliminary hearing for the remaining defendants, who are already in custody.
Prosecutor’s statement
According to Georgia’s attorney general, Giorgi Gvarakidze, “while the Georgian government chose a course of maintaining peace and refused to impose economic sanctions on Russia,” some opposition leaders — Elene Khoshtaria, Zurab Girchi Japaridze, and Giorgi Vashadze — allegedly passed information to foreign states about oil imports and the situation in Georgia’s military sector. Investigators claim they spread “false information suggesting that Georgia’s airspace was being used to deliver Iranian drones to Russia.”
The attorney general also alleges that Khoshtaria, Japaridze, and Vashadze provided foreign partners with lists of civil servants and other documents to facilitate sanctions. Prosecutors say this led to Western sanctions targeting around 300 officials and business figures.
Gvarakidze further stated that after the parliamentary elections in October 2024, the accused “began active street campaigns aimed at radicalising the process — publicly calling for revolution, the overthrow of authorities, picketing government buildings, and physical confrontations with law enforcement.”
The prosecutor added that former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, using his personal social media accounts, “publicly encouraged his supporters to engage in illegal and violent actions, calling for aggressive resistance. In his statements, he urged them to occupy government buildings and ‘overthrow the regime.’”
Describing the ongoing protests in Georgia, now lasting almost a year, the prosecution claims that funding and material support for the demonstrators came through several non-governmental organisations and specially established funds receiving money from international donors.
новости в Грузии
The open court hearing on the criminal cases against citizens of the Republic of Armenia—Arayik Harutyunyan, Arkadi Ghukasyan, Bako Sahakyan, Davit Ishkhanyan, David Babayan, Levon Mnatsakanyan, and others—accused of crimes against peace and humanity, war crimes (including planning and waging an aggressive war, genocide, violations of the laws and customs of war), terrorism, financing of terrorism, forcible seizure and retention of power, and numerous other offenses resulting from Armenia’s military aggression against Azerbaijan, continued on November 6.
A group of influential US senators and congressmembers from both the Democratic and Republican parties have called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to protect former US officials and employees of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), who have become “targets of unfair persecution” by Georgian authorities amid anti-American rhetoric.
In their letter to the secretary, the senators and congressmembers stressed that the Georgian government, represented by the ruling party Georgian Dream, has repeatedly expressed a desire to restore relations with the United States, but its actions suggest otherwise.
“We urge you to immediately use all available tools to protect former US officials who have been unfairly targeted as a result of anti-American actions by the Georgian government.
The government of Georgia, led by Georgian Dream, has repeatedly expressed a desire to restore bilateral relations with the United States, yet its actions and statements suggest otherwise.
We call on you to demand guarantees from the Georgian government that former US Agency for International Development (USAID) diplomats and other US-affiliated staff will not become targets of defamation or attacks,” the letter says.
The authors stress that the US government relies on local staff and has a duty to protect them.
“If we cannot safeguard our personnel from attacks by foreign governments, it will limit our ability to hire staff and carry out US policy elsewhere in the world. We urge you to condemn these attacks,” the senators and congressmembers write.
They also reference anti-American statements by Mamuka Mdinaraidze, head of Georgia’s State Security Service:
“On 1 October, media reports stated that Mamuka Mdinaraidze accused the US government of orchestrating a ‘revolution’ through payments to FSN staff. These payments, however, were lawful compensation provided under Georgian legislation upon staff dismissal.
These statements, repeated by representatives of Georgian Dream, misrepresent the issue and create a security threat for FSN. They also show that Georgian Dream is not taking serious steps to improve relations with the United States.”
The letter was signed by senior Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Jeanne Shaheen (Democrat, New Hampshire), Roger Wicker (Republican, Mississippi), John Curtis (Republican, Utah), Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat, Rhode Island), and House members Joe Wilson (Republican, South Carolina) and Steve Cohen (Democrat, Tennessee).
On 4 October, Radio Free Europe reported that Georgia’s ambassador to the US, Tamar Taliashvili, was summoned to the State Department over a report by the pro-government Georgian TV channel Imedi, which claimed that the United States had allegedly funded a “revolutionary attempt” in Georgia.
In an interview accompanying the report, Mamuka Mdinaraidze said: “The embassy of one country from Thailand, which is the largest in terms of staff and size, even globally, has people in Georgia funded for anti-Chinese purposes, and in reality, about 95–99% of this sum is used for radicalism, revolutionary goals, and various actions against the authorities.”
The Georgian outlet Netgazeti published a response from the US State Department, stating that the false information spread by government officials “distorts” the routine financial transfers made by the US government to former staff.
US lawmakers urge protection