The Kremlin is directly financing and handling the election campaign of Georgia’s most Russia-friendly political party, according to a new investigation by the Dossier Center — a London-based organization owned by the exiled former oil baron Mikhail Khodorkhovsky.

Since 2016, when it won its first six seats in the Georgian parliament, the Alliance of Patriots has been accused of working on Russia’s behalf in Georgia. Documents published by the Dossier Center last week allege that Russian security services are crafting a $8 million election campaign for the party in the run-up to a parliamentary vote in October.

Relations between Russia and Georgia have been tense since the outbreak of the Russo-Georgian war of 2008. Georgia remains extremely sensitive to Russian interference in its affairs. In June 2019, thousands of Georgians took to the streets of Tbilisi to express their anger at a Russian politician’s address to the nation's parliament.

Nino Evgenidze, the executive director of the Tbilisi-based think tank the Economic Policy Research Center, said Kremlin meddling in its neighbors’ elections is motivated by a fear of democratic examples emerging to inspire domestic discontent. “We’re talking about Russia’s neighbors, like Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia or Belarus. If these countries defeat Russian influence, then the next stop is Russia itself,” she said in a phone interview.