Georgia’s opposition gathered at the presidential palace in Tbilisi, standing shoulder to shoulder behind the president, Salome Zourabichvili, as she defiantly announced, “I do not recognize these elections. Recognizing them would be tantamount to legitimizing Russia’s takeover of Georgia … We cannot surrender our European future for the sake of future generations.”

The government, controlled by the ruling Georgian Dream party, she said, is “illegitimate” and the election it carried out October 26 was a “complete falsification”, CNN reports.

Her voice rising, she said: “We were not just witnesses but also victims of what can only be described as a Russian special operation – a new form of hybrid warfare waged against our people and our country.”

She urged Georgians to gather in protest Monday evening on the capital’s main street, Rustaveli Avenue, “to peacefully defend every vote and, most importantly, our future.”

The statement was a bold challenge to the Georgian Dream’s founder and now honorary chairman, the reclusive billionaire oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who claimed victory in the parliamentary election even before all the votes were counted.

Ivanishvili had vowed to ban the opposition if his party won the election, and his opponents are taking him at his word.

Many Georgians feel deep hostility toward Russia, which invaded Georgia in 2008 and occupies about 20% of its internationally recognized territory – about the same proportion it occupies in Ukraine. Despite recent Russian aggression against Georgia, Georgian Dream has long been accused of harboring pro-Russian sympathies and Ivanishvili made his fortune in the Soviet Union.

On Saturday, as Georgians cast their ballots, thousands of Georgian and international election observers fanned out to voting precincts across the country, from urban centers to poor, remote villages in the Caucasus mountains, trying to evaluate whether the vote was free and fair.