On Saturday, Oct. 4, protesters look set to flood the streets of Tbilisi for a fresh wave of demonstrations aimed at ousting the pro-Russian ruling party Georgian Dream, which has overseen Georgia’s increasingly stark authoritarian turn since disputed elections last October.
What organizers and opposition figures have referred to as the day of “Ivanishvili’s peaceful overthrow,” in reference to Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder and honorary chair of Georgian Dream, widely viewed as the country’s éminence grise, coincides with local elections boycotted by eight opposition parties.
The usually low-stakes municipal vote has taken on special significance after months of crackdown on opposition parties and the protesters who have taken to the capital’s central artery, Rustaveli Avenue, for more than 300 days now.
Among those missing from the protests will be Zviad Tsetskhladze, a prominent 20-year-old student, political activist, and former volunteer in Ukraine who, until his arrest last year, could be found on the front line of Georgia’s youth protest movement.
As one of Georgia’s more than 60 political prisoners, Zviad will mark the day behind bars after his years-long effort to organize opposition to the ruling party.
That does not mean that he has been silent. The call for revolution now echoing around the country was carried on the very first page of his self-published magazine, Cell 101, named from the prison cell from which he continues to pen and publish his reflections and ideas.
“Zviad believes that the country is ruled by a Russian occupation regime and that it will never cede power through elections. Therefore, it is necessary to forcibly oust it from power through a peaceful revolution,” Tsetskhladze’s father, Zurab Tsetskhladze, told Kyiv Post.
Zurab has been tirelessly campaigning for the release of his son with spouse Nargiz Davitadze, touring regions across Georgia with other parents to distribute samizdat-style newspapers raising awareness of their children’s fate as prisoners of conscience, according to OC Media.
Zviad was among the founders of the youth movement Dafioni in Batumi, which spearheaded protests against the Kremlin-influenced “foreign agent” bill eventually passed in Georgia in 2024 after fierce dissent, as critics said the bill would suppress civil liberties and cement Georgia’s pro-Russian trajectory.
He also successfully protested the arrival of a Russian cruise ship carrying some 800 Russian tourists, which docked in the Black Sea port of Batumi in 2023 amid the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as the Georgian government sought to court Russian tourists.
Zurab said that Zviad, who fought as a volunteer in Ukraine against Russia, cares deeply about the countries’ shared fight against Russian aggression.
Ukraine is a friend to us, heroically fighting our common enemy.
According to his father, Zviad established ties with the Georgian Legion while still a minor in 2022, pledging to come and serve in Ukraine as soon as he became an adult.
“Zviad believes that Russia is an evil empire all over the world and that it does not give neighboring countries the opportunity to peacefully coexist,” Zurab said. “He thinks that Russia should be fought wherever it starts a war; only in this way can it be defeated.”
True to his word, in July 2024, Zviad enlisted in the Georgian Legion and spent two and a half months receiving combat experience in Ukraine before he was sent home with a contusion injury.
“Ukraine is a friend to us, and at the same time it is heroically fighting our common enemy, Russia,” Zurab said. “Georgians like Zviad go to fight against Russia in Ukraine to show appreciation for this.”
Zviad’s decision to fight for Kyiv was also influenced by his own country’s longstanding fight against Russian military aggression.
“Zviad believes that when you have a treacherous enemy in your neighbourhood, all men in the country need to be ready to fight them. For this, you need military knowledge and combat experience.”
Zviad has a certain charisma; other young people want to follow him
Zviad returned to Georgia from Ukraine shortly before the October 2024 parliamentary ballot, in which Georgian Dream won a contest marred by allegations of electoral fraud, including vote buying and voter coercion.
A government announcement of the suspension of EU accession talks until 2028 shortly after catalyzed mass mobilization on the streets and subsequent protests were some of the most ferocious the country has seen.
Security forces responded with a calibrated campaign of repression, including organized beatings, repeated use of tear gas and water cannons, widespread administrative detentions and a wave of criminal prosecutions.
More than 500 protesters were detained in late 2025 on “spurious administrative charges”, according to Amnesty, with at least 300 detainees reporting torture or other ill-treatment.
Zviad was arrested near the height of protests on Dec. 4, 2024, after police conducted searches at his rental apartment and claimed to have found improvised incendiaries, an allegation that both Zviad and Zurab emphasize is false.
In reality, Zurab says, “Zviad was targeted because of his leadership of the spring protests, his time in Ukraine, and because he has a certain charisma that makes other young people want to follow him.”
The arrests of Zviad and his peers were a harbinger of the crackdown to come. Hundreds of protesters were detained and 53 activists were remanded in custody throughout the months that followed.
After pledging to outlaw political rivals, in June 2025 Georgian Dream jailed six prominent opposition politicians and placed another two in pre-trial detention in one single week.
They were convicted for boycotting a parliamentary commission which they said was being used by the ruling party to suppress the pro-Western opposition, in what anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International described as “the most severe democratic collapse in Georgia’s post-Soviet history”, according to the BBC.
Georgian Dream also moved to cripple independent journalism, with outlets hit with defamation suits, fines and criminal probes, while foreign journalists were denied entry to the country with increasing regularity.
On Sept 2., Zviad was sentenced to two and a half years in prison after being found guilty of “disrupting public order”, along with seven of his peers. Half of the defendants were under 21, according to Civil Georgia.
The European future of the homeland
Zurab told Kyiv Post that Zviad remains upbeat, continuing his studies from prison: “He says, ‘When the homeland requires it, sacrificing freedom is normal.’”
“He knows that when a person is involved in a struggle like this, he has to bravely go through these trials for the sake of the homeland, the European future of the homeland,” Zurab added.
As tens of thousands gather in Tbilisi tonight calling for nothing less than the overthrow of the ruling party, it remains to be seen whether a fractured opposition can withstand a state willing to brutalize and imprison all dissent.
But Zviad, Zurab says, is optimistic that Georgia will eventually be free: “Zviad believes that Ivanishvili’s regime will definitely end in the country; it is only a matter of time.”