• Resident Fellow

Givi Gigitashvili

Givi Gigitashvili is a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab). In this role, Gigitashvili investigates influence operations, social media manipulation, and FIMI campaigns targeting Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus. Before joining the DFRLab in 2019, Gigitashvili worked as an international development consultant for Ecorys, an international research and consulting company, where he was providing research and consultancy services to a wide range of public and private clients in Eastern European countries.

Gigitashvili degrees from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University (BA, Social Science), University of Tartu (MA, EU-Russia Studies), and King’s College London (Postgraduate Diploma, Strategic Communications). He has authored dozens of research reports and articles on disinformation, foreign influence operations, and information warfare. Gigitashvili speaks Georgian, English, Polish and Russian.

March 2022

Russian War Report: Russian false-flag operation seeks to drag Belarus into Ukraine war

by Digital Forensic Research Lab

Ukrainian media reported that Russia attacked a Belarusian village from Ukrainian airspace in an attempt to make it appear that Ukraine had attacked Belarus and provoke Belarusian President Lukashenka to move troops into Ukraine. 
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March 2022

Russian War Report: Putin endorses plan to bring 16,000 “volunteers” from the Middle East to fight in Ukraine

by Digital Forensic Research Lab

Russia’s Defense Minister announced that more than 16,000 “volunteers” from the Middle East had expressed interest in joining Russia’s “liberation movement” for the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
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March 2022

False reports incite attacks on non-Ukrainian refugees in Poland

by Givi Gigitashvili

Polish right-wing party calls for extremist groups to protect citizens from “immigrants from outside Europe."
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