Georgian TV: Russia's Hand in Burjanadze Scandal

In a new twist in the coup conspiracy scandal involving former parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze, pro-government Rustavi-2 television on March 27 reported alleged links between Russia and Burjanadze's husband and members of her Democratic Movement-United Georgia party.

Citing the Ukrainian newspaper Grom (Thunder), Rustavi-2 said that Burjanadze's husband, Badri Bitsadze, had met on March 13 in Kiev with Russian oligarch Shalva Breus. Grom claimed that Breus, who is of Georgian descent, has worked with the Russian security services and Interior Ministry. Without naming a source, the publication alleged that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's confidantes had recruited Breus to establish contact with the Georgian opposition.

Meanwhile, Rustavi-2 focuses on other supposed Russian ties to the party. The station told viewers on March 27 that Mikheil Avaliani, brother of an arrested Burjanadze party senior official, Zurab Avaliani, is a member of Russia's ruling United Russia (Yedinaya Rossiya) Party and a city council member for the Russian city of Arkhangelsk. Zurab Avaliani has been sentenced to two-month pre-trial detention on coup conspiracy and illegal weapons charges.

Burjanadze did not deny her husband's meeting with Breus, but described the information as part of what she describes as the government's ongoing campaign to discredit her party on the eve of April 9 anti-Saakashvili protests. In the wake of Georgia's 2008 war with Russia, any report of close ties with Russia can serve as a potential kiss of death for a Georgian politician.