America News Agency

Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has alleged that the United States is trying to bring about regime change in Georgia by instigating massive protests during parliamentary elections in the former Soviet republic later this year.

Relations between Washington and Tbilisi deteriorated after Georgia passed a foreign agents law in May requiring NGOs, media outlets, and individuals receiving more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as organisations "supporting the interests of a foreign power" and disclose their donors.

The country's pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, vetoed the law, but the ruling Georgian Dream party overrode it.

On Tuesday, SVR's press service said that information obtained by the agency "shows Washington's strong commitment to seeking regime change in Georgia as a result of parliamentary elections held in the country on 26 October".

US President Joe Biden's administration "is already preparing a large-scale information campaign to discredit the Georgian Dream party," it said.

"American 'curators' have already ordered the opposition forces in Georgia to start planning protests in the country simultaneously with the elections," the agency said.