Yes, it is. If violence from government continues it can make the demonstrations become violent and militant. Everything has been 100 percent peaceful until now. It’s not youths high on testoterone like in some other large scale protests you see, it is normal people, in all age groups, demonstrating. It is a national mobilisation of the nation. Old and young, they have carried roses and candles and violence has not been reported.
I think it is hard to say what will happen tbh. But it’s hard to make so many thousands all stay peaceful if they are met by organised thuggery on behalf of the security state.
Putin is a thug. He will have no qualms whatsoever with having violent proxies smack people down to keep Georgia within Russia’s orbit, and not moving towards Europe.
In a way, if the violence is met with some (very understandable) violence in return, from peaceful protesters, it will play into Putin’s hands. Then he can overreact and overwhelm the situation with a show of brutality and force that the people just cannot match.
It is heartbreaking because people should have the right to self determination.
Georgia, Palestine, probably Taiwan soon, and others, are getting whacked by authoritarian bullies and it feels like the world is going backwards. 
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I blame Pro-Kremlim Authoritarian Georgians more than Putin myself (directly anyway, indirectly, Russia is to blame for this due to how terrified everyone is of them). I doubt Kreml is micromanaging events in Georgia. But they support the regime politically and most definately with their intelligence services. They might also have a “Plan B” to militarily intervene if things go out of hand, but a bit hard to say due to events elsewhere.
This has been going on for some times and grown worse and more confrontational. The setting background is fear of Russia. Georgian Dream’s platform is “no problems with Russia, they are are only 30km from Tblisi and we must avoid war at all costs”. That’s their excuse anyway, for all their other policies.
This is a good read tbh (you’ll note that the president supports the demonstrators and how fucked up things are):
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Another very sad news coming out from Belgium
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https://twitter.com/olddog100ua/status/1789379925679518205
https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1789364698619457987
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Not enough people indeed…
https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1790047057752858798
https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1790034338727198850
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I really hope the young woman in the second tweet is really representative of other people around her. Georgia’s future can only be brighter if that’s the case.
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Isn’t he in favour of stopping support for Ukraine? Link?
Fico is pro-Russian. His assailant is an author, an activist and a member of the opposition party.
Fico has been shot and now in life-threatening condition.
Yeah, this was one of the reasons why they had such an amazing first phase covid vaccine roll out, as they were given priority status by the Russians for their supply. It is also why they got hit so badly by a subsequent wave among their poorly protected population vaccinated with a shoddy vaccine
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He is a nationalist-populist, the kind of My country first - guy, a bit like Orban.
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https://twitter.com/revishvilig/status/1790833859518472571
https://twitter.com/revishvilig/status/1790810824237367740
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No, he isn’t. Most of Western MSM are just terrible when it comes to reporting this, have little knowledge of Slovakia, and don’t check stuff before they publish:
https://twitter.com/UnaHajdari/status/1790832680893845633
https://twitter.com/panyiszabolcs/status/1790798337408446553
The shooter is a former security guard and known to have Pro-Kremlin leanings. If anything, it’s very possible that Fico was shot because he isn’t pro-Russian enough and hasn’t actually blocked aidd to Ukraine:
https://twitter.com/panyiszabolcs/status/1790789652078526939
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Yes and no. Fico tries to please his nationalist base, who is very pro-Russia, while at the same time trying to maintain good relations with the EU and Ukraine. He is a nationalist populist, populist first, and tries to please his base while not angering his European neighbours too much. A mini-Orban, but he is far from as hostile to Ukraine as Hungary is. It’s a bit complicated.
The pro-Kreml nationalists are very angry regarding the above btw and sees it as a betrayal.
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Thanks for correcting this. I miss the days when the BBC had these specialists and you could rely on them to at least get their facts right.
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Likewise, I haven’t seen a major news outlet not branding Fico as pro-Russian.
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