Georgian PM praises country's protest crackdown despite US condemnation

More protests are planned in Tbilisi for Sunday night, and local media reported demonstrations were taking place in towns and cities throughout the country.Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday that an attempted revolution was taking place in Georgia. The former Russian president said on Telegram that Georgia was "moving rapidly along the Ukrainian path, into the dark abyss. Usually this sort of thing ends very badly".

Medvedev, once seen as a modernising reformer, has reinvented himself as an aggressive hawk since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, often hurling dire warnings at Kyiv and its Western supporters.The Kremlin has yet to comment on the latest events in Georgia, but it has long accused the West of fomenting revolutions in post-Soviet countries that Moscow still regards as part of its sphere of influence.

Georgian Prime Minister Kobakhidze dismissed criticism by the United States, which has condemned the use of "excessive force" against demonstrators.

Deepening the constitutional crisis in the country, outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili - a critic of the government and a strong advocate of Georgian membership of the EU - said on Saturday that she would refuse to step down when her term ends later this month.

Zourabichvili said she would stay in office because the new parliament - chosen in October in elections that the opposition says were rigged - was illegitimate and had no authority to name her successor.

Kobakhidze said he understood Zourabichvili's "emotional state".

"But of course on December 29 she will have to leave her residence and surrender this building to a legitimately elected president," he said.

Georgian Dream has nominated Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former soccer star with a record of hardline, anti-Western statements, as its candidate for president. The head of state will be chosen on Dec. 14 by an electoral college consisting of members of parliament and local government representatives.

But domestic opponents and Western governments have become alarmed by what they see as increasingly authoritarian and pro-Russian tendencies by the Georgian Dream government.

In June, it enacted a law obliging NGOs to register as "foreign agents" if they received more than 20% of their funding from abroad. In September, parliament approved a law curbing LGBT rights.

New EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas voiced solidarity on Sunday with the demonstrators.

"We stand with the Georgian people and their choice for a European future," she posted on X.

"We condemn the violence against protesters & regret signals from ruling party not to pursue Georgia's path to EU and democratic backsliding of the country. This will have direct consequences from EU side."