On blood-red billboards across Tbilisi, a mysterious hand holds a bundle of leashes tied around the necks of Georgia’s most prominent opposition figures.

The advertisement reads “No war! No agents!” and is the latest attempt by the ruling Georgian Dream party to cast its critics as puppets of sinister foreign powers. Billionaire party leader Bidzina Ivanishvili has repeatedly warned of a “Global War Party”, which he claims is plotting to use Georgia to open a second front in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Voters will decide whether to endorse Georgian Dream’s framing of the election as a choice between war and peace in a high-stakes parliamentary election on Oct 26. The major opposition parties have campaigned on rebuilding Georgia’s ties with the European Union and the United States, which have accused Georgia of abandoning democratic values.