DFWatch staff 
TBILISI, DFWatch–Autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko said Monday that Belarus might recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia if President Putin tells him to do so. “As soon as I understand and the President [of the Russian Federation] tells me that there is a need for this,” Lukashenko said in an interview with pro-governmental Russian journalist Vladimir Solovyov … Read more
TBILISI, DFWatch–Zurab Adeishvili, a former Georgian justice minister who is an adviser to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, was attacked and beaten in Kyiv on Monday. Adeishvili was approached by four men in the street who proceeded to beat the Georgian politician, writes “Ukrainskaya Pravda” based on a source in the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine and … Read more
Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream, after lengthy deliberations, finally submitted a draft resolution in support of Ukraine to parliament on Wednesday for approval, which immediately drew criticism from the opposition after it was revealed that it did not mention neither Russia nor Putin. Two meetings were held between the Georgian Dream and opposition factions on Wednesday … Read more
Imprisoned former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili says that if Russia launches a direct military aggression on Ukraine, it will inevitably invade Georgia and occupy Black Sea ports that are of strategic importance to it. “According to my information, if Russia starts implementing a large-scale plan in Ukraine, it is going to capture Anaklia in … Read more
TBILISI, DFWatch–The artificial crisis is over, we won the election convincingly, and the ‘radical’ opposition, whose leader is ‘deservedly’ serving a sentence in jail, is ‘extremely weakened’, Georgian Dream chairman Irakli Kobakhidze stated as he summed up the political events of the last year. Writing on Facebook on Monday, Kobakhidze listed the ruling party’s four … Read more
TBILISI, DFWatch–While the crisis in relations between Russia and the West over NATO enlargement continues to escalate, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Karen Donfried reaffirmed the US’ support for Georgia in a phone call with Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, David Zalkaliani. According to the Georgian MFA, the sides exchanged … Read more
TBILISI, DFWatch–Tbilisi Court of Appeals on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by former Georgian security chief and former KGB operative Igor Giorgadze against DFWatch and its editor Lasha Tughushi, in which he demanded a retraction of information published in a 2016 article. The Court of Appeals fully agreed with and upheld an earlier decision by … Read more
Co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will make a fact-finding visit to Tbilisi Wednesday for the monitoring of obligations and commitments by Georgia. Titus Corlatean (Romania, SOC) and Claude Kern (France, ALDE) will mainly focus on the recent political developments, the October 2021 local elections, the reform of the judiciary, … Read more
TBILISI, DFWatch–Georgia’s former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, was given “anti-psychotic drugs” while in custody without a medical need, according to an organization involved in his defense, while his lawyer adds “suspicions grow” this might be done deliberately to impair his mental health. The Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture “Empathy”, which is actively involved in the … Read more
TBILISI, DFWatch–In Georgia, the government Friday agreed to transfer the imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili to a military hospital, after a sudden deterioration of his health. The ex-president’s fifty day long hunger strike has caused a public outrage and a growing pressure from the West. Saakashvili and his lawyers demanded to transfer him to a … Read more