The central figure in a $600 million Bermuda court decision against what was once one of the world’s largest banks is now playing a key role in the reported Russian takeover of neighbouring country Georgia.

Critics of the Russian-leaning Georgian prime minister accuse him of being under the thumb of the Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, the pro-Russian billionaire who made his fortune in Russia and who helped to get the prime minister elected.

Considered a “Russian” oligarch, Mr Ivanishvili is also known in Bermudian legal circles because of his legal takedown of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse, the financial institution that subsequently collapsed.

Among a dizzying array of scandals and legal setbacks, Credit Suisse was sanctioned by courts in both Bermuda and Singapore, after losing hundreds of millions of dollars invested by Mr Ivanishvili.

A Bermuda court ruled in March 2022 that the tycoon and his family are due damages of more than half a billion dollars from Credit Suisse's Bermuda life insurance arm.

The court said Mr Ivanishvili and his family were due the damages as a result of a long-running fraud committed by a former Credit Suisse adviser in Europe.

But the bank’s victim was no ordinary investor. The successful businessman was the former prime minister of Georgia and today has a $50 million home that looks down on the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

He is known more widely as a 67-year-old billionaire with close ties to the Kremlin. European lawmakers have long sought international sanctions against him.

He is considered responsible for “material or financial support for actions that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”. And he is called the "informal ruler of Georgia", who controls the government and wants to steer it away from Europe.

Some 20 per cent of Georgia is already occupied by 8,000 Russian troops. And Georgia is the not-so-secret route through which Russia has been importing European cargo, in some cases contrary to international sanctions.

Meanwhile, Russians have been pouring into Georgia in what was originally thought to be young people evading the army draft and other citizens fleeing the economic and social hardships of Russian life, especially under the weight of international sanctions.

But as more Russians moved in, took up residence, bought substantial parcels of land and opened a large number of businesses, Georgians began to fear there was “a quiet invasion” going on, as told recently to 60 Minutes by Salome Zourabichvili, the Georgian president.

Ms Zourabichvili conceded there is nothing she can do about it because of the powerful forces, including some in the Georgian government, that are sympathetic to Russia.

Such forces include Mr Ivanishvili.

Russia invaded Ukraine February 24, 2022. Barely more than a week later Georgia applied for membership in the European Union (March 3, 2022).

An April 2014 survey showed that EU membership was welcomed by 77 per cent of Georgians, and opposed by only 11 per cent.

President Zourabichvili, 70, the first woman to occupy the six-year term (2018), is expected to be Georgia's last popularly elected president. The rules have been changed so that future heads of state are to be elected indirectly by a parliamentary college of electors.

She told 60 Minutes: “It’s very unnerving when, in your own country, you have people who are talking the language of the enemy, and believe they are at home. They are behaving and believing that they are very much at home.”

She fears Russia will use an age-old tactic of military invasion under the pretence of protecting their Russian citizens.

Pro-Russian lawmakers have employed legislative attempts to impede the road to integrating Georgia into the European Union.

But there is also a propaganda war being waged by Russia, including online and televised anti-western messaging; what she called a “hybrid war” being pumped into Georgia.

In May, CNN reported that with more than 100,000 Russians arriving since Moscow invaded Ukraine, huge protests followed the Georgian government’s legislative attempts to impede the road to integrating Georgia into the European Union.

The EU membership that is favoured by the Georgian people, some believe is contrary to Russia’s attempts to rebuild the Soviet empire.

Georgia regained autonomy with its independence in 1991, with the crumbling of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

But Russia invaded different parts of the country in 1992 and in 2008.

These are the forces driving Georgia’s anti-Russia stance.

Although sharing a 556-mile border, the two countries have had no formal diplomatic relations since Russia’s 2008 invasion — but Russians living and working there enjoy lax visa requirements, much to the chagrin of Georgians.