Today, the US State Department imposed sanctions on Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire and founder of the ruling party in Georgia, against whom mass demonstrations have been going on for weeks because she decided to freeze the process of that country's accession to the European Union, reports AFP.
According to the assessment of the State Department, Ivanishvili is "undermining the democratic future of Georgia in favor of Russia", the country where he made his fortune and which is under Western sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine.
As US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken stated in his explanation, the actions of Ivanishvili, who does not hold an official political position, and the ruling Georgian Dream party "weakened democratic institutions, enabled the violation of human rights and violated the exercise of basic freedoms in Georgia."
Blinken also stated that he "strongly condemns the repression" of the protesters by the Georgian government under the control of the Georgian Dream.
The former Soviet republic borders Russia, with which it briefly went to war in 2008 after trying to take back Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two separatist regions with Russian populations, under its control. Moscow then recognized those areas as independent states.
When Georgian Dream came to power, it advocated European integration, and last year Georgia also became a candidate for membership in the European Union.
However, despite huge public opposition and mass demonstrations, the government adopted a series of restrictive laws modeled on those existing in Russia, and Brussels de facto froze the process of Georgia's accession to the Union.
In the recent elections, the increasingly authoritarian Georgian Dream won the elections, the results of which, as well as the election process, were contested by both the opposition and international observers. Then that party decided to suspend the country's accession to the European Union for four years.
Due to the results of the elections and this decision of the ruling party, protests in the country have not stopped since November.
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