In Tbilisi, the country's capital, several nights of pro-European demonstrations took place, with demonstrators denouncing a pro-Russian drift by the authorities.
The Kremlin said Monday, December 2, that the Georgian government is trying to restore calm, after four nights of demonstrations and clashes between police and pro-European demonstrators who accuse the authorities of pro-Russian authoritarian drift and of turning away from the Union. European. Police dispersed angry demonstrators gathered in front of Parliament in Tbilisi on Sunday evening with water cannons and tear gas after the government's announcement to postpone any EU integration negotiations until 2028. “The Georgian authorities are taking measures to stabilize the situation and restore calm”said the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, during a briefing.
The spokesperson then drew a parallel between this protest and the Maidan revolution in Ukraine in 2014, which Moscow considers to be a coup d'état instigated by the West. “The most direct parallel we can make is Maidan. All the signs of an “orange revolution” are there”said Mr. Peskov, using the expression referring to the massive demonstrations in Ukraine, from 2004, following the presidential election deemed rigged by the opposition.
Mr. Peskov thus deplored in Georgia “an attempt to destabilize the situation”without giving further details. The Kremlin accuses the West, led by the Americans, of having overthrown the then pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014 during a pro-European revolution. In the process, Russia annexed the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula and militarily supported pro-Russian separatists in Donbass, in eastern Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin presents his February 2022 large-scale assault on Ukraine as a continuation of this conflict, viewing the existing Ukrainian government as illegitimate.
