[1] Appointed in February 2008, Kitsmarishvili was recalled on 11 July after Russia confirmed it had conducted military flights over South Ossetia,[citation needed] a breakaway region of Georgia that would be occupied by Russia after the August 2008 War between the two states.

Prior to accepting the ambassadorial post, Kitsmarishvili owned the Rustavi 2 television broadcasting company, which played a key role during the Rose Revolution of 2003.

Since his dismissal in mid-September 2008 by Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, he publicly criticized Saakashvili's handling of the August 2008 war with Russia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia[2] — claiming that although Russia had provoked the conflict, the actual fighting had been started by Georgia,[3][4] and that the United States had approved the Georgian government's plans to retake Abkhazia in early 2008.

[7] In November 2009, Kitsmarishvili took over the management rights of the Tbilisi-based pro-opposition television station Maestro TV.

[9] In July 2014 Kitsmarishvili was found dead in a garage of the apartment block where he lived in Tbilisi's Vake district.