Germany has emerged as a leading contributor of military aid to Ukraine, supplying an extensive arsenal of weapons and equipment, according to Defense Express, citing German government data, Azernews reports.
Month: January 2025
Salome Zurabishvili addressed the nation on the New Year’s eve in a televised address, surrounded by the dismissed civil servants. She made unity the main theme of her address. President Zurabishvili spoke both of the moments of unity and of good that 2024 had brought, as well as the challenges and struggles the nation had faced.
2024 was a year of great unity, she said, recalling the achievement of EU candidate status at the very end of 2023 and the excitement that continued into early 2024. She also recalled the success of qualifying for Euro 2024 and Georgia’s participation and victories at the Olympic Games in the summer of 2024. We are and will remain united, she said.
She also spoke of the other side of 2024: “The year also brought other things: it was a year of the Russian [foreign agents] law and [other] Russian laws, of Russian methods, of Russian repressions against our people, against our soul and against our future. She noted: “That’s why we don’t know how 2024 will remain in our memory. But in spite of all this, we have come through it,” she said, adding, “I congratulate you together with these people, who are only a small part of the large group of civil servants who have been dismissed in recent days,” stressing that they were the ones who put freedom and love for their country above all else.
She then underlined the importance of civil servants, saying “there is no state without honorable and strong civil servants. These are the people who put freedom and dignity above everything else, who know that nothing is above the country and love for it.”
She noted that Georgia isn’t just its nature and people, but what has been achieved through a difficult struggle and has become a state.
Salome Zurabishvili said: “This is what we are protecting today, against Russians and against internal Russians.” She expressed confidence that “there will come a time when we will return to unity”, adding that “unity will save us, as it did centuries ago”. As a symbol and embodiment of this unity, she cited the giant “supra” feast table organized by protesters on Rustaveli Avenue on New Year’s Eve, along with the accompanying Georgian iconic folk song “mravalzhamier”.
She concluded by congratulating the nation on 2025 and expressed her confidence that “2025 will be a truly victorious year”.
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In a letter dated December 30, 2024 addressed to the Secretary of State Nominee Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Nominee Representative Michel Waltz, Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, Representative Joe Wilson urges them to extend sanctions already imposed on Bidzina Ivanishvili to his immediate family members and cronies as well as to dismantle “the Georgian sanctions evasion schemes.”
Joe Wilson urges the high posts nominees “to prioritize U.S. law enforcement mechanisms to expose and dismantle Georgian sanctions evasion schemes, scam call centers, and other illicit Georgian Dream enterprises.” Joe Wilson further stresses that these operations “sustain Ivanishvili’s regime and enable its corrupt cadres to profit from atrocities such as Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, which is abetted by Chinese, North Korean, and Iranian complicity.”
Wilson notes that the imposition of sanctions on Bidzina Ivanishvili, has been a significant step forward as “these measures strike at the heart of the de-facto Georgian government’s misleading narrative that its alignments with pro-Chinese, Iranian and Russian interests would find acceptance under President-elect Trumps’ leadership, or under any U.S. administration.”
Extending sanctions, he argues, would be a decisive U.S. action, which done in coordination with allies, “could render these operations untenable, directly undermining the Georgian regimes, ability to maintain its undemocratic grip on power.
The Helsinki Commission Chair states that this is “a key opportunity to advance our shared goals of defending democracy and countering malign influence worldwide” and stresses that “Axis of Aggressors would be deprived of a significant force multiplier should Georgia return to rule by the Georgian people.
U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) has been an active proponent of sanctions of those Georgian officials and individuals who undermine Georgian democracy. He introduced the ‘‘Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia’s Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence Act’’ or ‘‘MEGOBARI Act’’ [Megobari (მეგობარი) means “Friend” in Georgian] in the United States House of Representatives. MEGOBARI Act envisages sanctions against Georgian officials responsible for undermining Georgia’s democracy and tasks relevant U.S. government agencies to report to Congress about the improper influence and sanctions evasion, as well as the Russian intelligence assets in Georgia.
Ivanishvili was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury on December 27th, for “undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian federation”.
Also Read:
- 30/11/2024 – BREAKING: U.S. Suspends Strategic Partnership with Georgia
- 11/07/2024 – BREAKING: U.S. MEGOBARI Act Passes Committee, Poised for House Vote
- 05/07/2024 – BREAKING: U.S. ‘Indefinitely’ Postpones Noble Partner Exercise in Georgia
- 06/06/2024 – BREAKING: US State Department Implements First Tranche of Sanctions against Georgian Individuals
South Caucasus should be region of peace, cooperation: Azerbaijani president Anadolu Agency | English
South Caucasus should be region of peace, cooperation: Azerbaijani president Anadolu Agency | English