Former British diplomat Ian Proud: BBC disinformation on WWI chemical weapons in Georgia is turning Britain into a laughing-stock

Former British diplomat and global crisis management expert Ian Proud has condemned a recent report by BBC as “blatant disinformation”, arguing that the broadcaster’s claim that Georgia used a World-War-I chemical agent against protesters is “one of the most disgraceful” of the year. According to Proud, the allegations are not supported by hard evidence - and represent a dangerous attempt to politicize and discredit Georgia.

“One of the most disgraceful reports in the BBC this year has been the claim this week that Georgia used a World War I chemical agent against protestors in 2024. This is blatant disinformation and a further embarrassment to the BBC after the doctored Donald Trump video.

Widespread protests erupted in Tbilisi following the October 2024 Georgian Parliamentary elections. Those protests went on for two months until the inauguration of the new President of Georgia, Mikheil Kavelashvili. The protests were stoked by the European Union’s decision in June 2024 to pause accession negotiations and framed unhelpfully as a choice for Georgia between relations with Europe and relations with Russia. For most Georgian voters, the elections were simply a chance to express their preference about who should run their country.

While most protestors were peaceful, there were some more hostile elements that tried to storm government buildings, rip up pavements and destroy street furniture, using the debris to attack the police. Some used more dangerous improvised weapons, including a type of firework cannon, videos of which you can find online. Molotov cocktails and lasers were used. Two people were found in possession of firearms. 160 police officers were injured during the demonstrations.

In response, Georgian police used a variety of tactics, including the use of water cannons, CS gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray. In the face of some extremely violent protestors, the Georgian police managed the protests with a high degree of control and professionalism. But some protestors suffered injuries while others experienced symptoms consistent with being subject to an incapacitant spray. This has all been explored in detail by the likes of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty.

So, it was surprising, therefore, to see the BBC article this week which alleged that Georgia’s police used a chemical agent called Camite, which was developed by the French in World War I. The BBC report is extremely thin on evidence, to put it mildly. It leans heavily on a leaked Georgian police inventory document from 2019 that includes details of a code that signifies a large family of industrial chemicals, one of which might be bromobenzyl cyanide, also known as Camite.

Three hundred and fifty protestors completed a survey describing their symptoms for a Georgian doctor who is a known opposition activist, and whose father was involved in the attempt to storm the Presidential Palace in Tbilisi, during the course of the riots. No toxicology tests were taken by those protestors who claimed to have suffered extended tear-gas related symptoms. Much weight is placed on the testimony of a former Georgian police officer who tested chemicals for use in water cannons in 2009. Not surprisingly - or at least to me - that person now lives in Ukraine.

There is no hard evidence to back up the combustible claim of chemical weapons use. This appears to be a case of blatant disinformation by the BBC.

Georgian Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili has called out the BBC report as a deliberate attempt to damage Georgia’s international reputation and threaten its internal security and stability.

For its part the Georgian Dream government has claimed that the BBC did not adequately cover the detailed responses it provided to the journalists investigating the story and has therefore decided to take legal action in the international courts.

The article carries the worrying whiff of another BBC effort to interfere in the internal political affairs of a foreign country, following the recent scandal about a doctored video of Donald Trump. Despite the Director General of the BBC being forced to resign, Donald Trump has also threatened to sue the BBC.

Splicing together different comments by Trump to make it appear like he was inciting a riot – when he was not - is entirely consistent with claiming that Georgian riot police hosed protestors with World War 1 chemical agents. In the case of the US elections, the BBC report reached into deep-seated Trumpophobia within the UK and wider European establishments. In the case of Georgia, it leans into the entirely spurious idea that Georgian Dream is somehow beholden to Putin’s Russia, for which there is also no evidence.

With Trump, the hope was that such videos might erode his support and lend weight to Kamala Harris in the Presidential elections. In Georgia, the very clear aim is to discredit the ruling Georgian Dream Government, adding weight to efforts in Europe and some parts of the US establishment to see it displaced from power.

Which takes us back to the protests in late 2024 which were funded by western donors who have flooded Georgia with NGOs in recent years. These activists are the tip of the spear in a campaign to force a choice between Russia and Europe, completely tone deaf and blind to the potentially devastating consequences for Georgia of doing so, but which play out every day on the killing fields of Ukraine.
High on hubris and low on intellect, the true believers press on regardless, desperate to see the government fall, yet with no ideas of what might replace it, given the highly fragmented nature of Georgia’s opposition parties.

It doesn’t matter that the OSCE monitoring mission from that time indicated that the Parliamentary elections in Georgia had been largely well run. They also indicated that an open playing field was created for all political parties to compete in the elections, though recognising the significant financial advantages that the ruling Georgian Dream party possessed in campaigning. Georgian Dream won the election with almost 54% of the votes cast.

As with Ukraine, facts and realities are entirely detached from the exigencies of the campaign itself. The 2024 election results continue to be called out as illegitimate by political actors both in the EU and in the USA, with calls for the vote to be annulled. The Helsinki Commission is pressing for widespread sanctions against Georgian Dream Officials. The EU has downgraded Georgia to the lowest possible level in its applicant status for membership talks, which in any case have been put on ice, and is threatening to revoke visa free travel status for Georgia. Some UK Parliamentarians regularly call for Georgia to be sanctioned. This is not only ridiculous but completely unjust.

From having started at a low base, Georgia is starting to thrive, the government focussed beyond all things on improving the prosperity of its citizens. Economic growth so far this year has been 7.6% after a bumper 9% growth in 2024. Georgia is ranked 7th in the World Bank’s Ease of doing business index, behind the US but ahead of the UK and every EU country except for Denmark. Ranked 15th in the Chandler Institute’s ranking of Stable Business regulations, higher than all but 4 EU countries. It generally outperforms all other EU aspirant countries - including Ukraine - in most global rankings.

It would be wholly irresponsible for Georgia’s government to take its eyes off of its core national interests and allow itself to be sacrificed on the altar of Europe’s geopolitical disaster project. Because, and as we have seen in Ukraine, the Europeans are happy for other countries to fight Russia, so long as they don’t have to.

The BBC’s motivations in writing this article appear clear, at least to me. The ‘Beeb’ has been plugging the narrative for four years that Ukraine can defeat Russia on the battlefield, and that no effort should be spared to avoid a negotiated settlement. That narrative is rapidly falling apart in the face of Trump’s peace efforts, Russia’s battlefield advantages and Ukraine’s corruption.

They clearly want a new regime change project to focus on, and that project is Georgia. The BBC is a disgrace and, it saddens me to say, is rapidly turning my country into a laughing-stock”, Proud said.