Georgian PM: “all violent groups” acting at Tbilisi protest rallies backed by radical opposition forces

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Saturday claimed the domestic radical opposition forces were behind “all violent groups that were acting” the previous days at the protest rallies outside the Parliament building in central Tbilisi against the Government’s decision to suspend the country’s European Union accession talks until 2028.

At a press conference held at the Government Administration, the head of the Government emphasised the “Maidan scenario [in reference to the protests in Kyiv between 2013 and 2014 that resulted in the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine] cannot happen in the country”.

You know what the Maidan brought to Ukraine at that time. The war broke out in five days. The country ultimately lost 20 percent of its territories, the Ukrainian economy collapsed, the Maidan scenario cannot be carried out in Georgia”, Kobakhidze noted.

Yesterday, It was not a [protest] rally [...], as soon as the violent groups gathered, they immediately started violence against police [officers]. As for the leaders of the radical opposition, they were there, although they were hiding from cameras so that the sincere protesters would not disperse”, he added.

Kobakhidze also mentioned the report of the McCain Institute, a Washington-based think tank, noting the report “directly deciphered the scenario of how the radical opposition should organise violent groups to attack democratic institutions in our country”.

The PM said “we, only in the last four years, have gone through two attempts of revolution planned and financed from outside, but both of them failed. Today, the opposition's resources are even scarcer, and therefore, a third attempt of the revolution cannot succeed”, adding “the Maidan [scenario] inspired by the United National Movement party” could not take place in Georgia.