The massive protests Georgia has been facing over the past week closely resemble the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. Backed by external powers, these protests are just another plot attempt, he told the ‘Great Game’ show on Russia’s Channel 1.
Over the last week, thousands of people have gathered by the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi in order to protest a bill that would have required individuals and organizations with foreign funding to register as “agents of foreign influence.”
The demonstrators hit the streets after the bill, which was introduced by the ‘Georgian Dream’ party, passed its first reading. The protests quickly spiraled out into clashes with the police in which several officers were injured and dozens of demonstrators were detained.
“[That] closely resembles Kiev’s ‘Maidan’ [coup],” Lavrov said, adding that, “There is no doubt that … the bill was nothing but a pretext for essentially launching a coup attempt.” According to the minister, the bill introduced by the Georgian lawmakers “pales” in comparison to how noncommercial organizations are regulated in the US, France, or Israel.