EU applicant's top MP compares bloc to USSR
The comments follow the European Commission's warning this week that Georgia's EU integration could be suspended unless the government returns to what Brussels calls a democratic path by the end of summer. The EU also threatened to revoke visa-free travel for Georgian citizens if the authorities fail to meet key conditions, including repealing the 'foreign agents' law and strengthening LGBTQ+ rights.
'We see direct interference in the Georgian elections,' Papuashvili said on Friday, as quoted by local media. 'It seems that some of the political elite [in Brussels] have taken some skills from the Soviet Union.'
Georgia – once part of the Soviet Union – applied for EU membership in March 2022, shortly after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. It was granted candidate status in December 2023 but has since suspended accession talks, citing Brussels' increasingly coercive tone. The government, however, insists that it remains committed to eventual EU membership.
The ruling Georgian Dream party, which secured a strong majority in last October's vote, has repeatedly accused Western powers of meddling under the guise of promoting democracy.
Officials in Tbilisi have drawn parallels to the 2014 Maidan uprising in Ukraine and said similar tactics are being used to destabilize Georgia for refusing to adopt a confrontational stance against Russia in the Ukraine conflict. Moscow, which has denied any involvement in Georgia's internal affairs, has also drawn a parallel between the events in Georgia and the 2014 coup in Ukraine.
Following Georgian Dream's victory, a coalition of pro-Western parties alleged fraud and launched protests to force the government's resignation. The EU and US voiced support for the opposition, which the Georgian leadership denounced as foreign interference.
Papuashvili also criticized the EU's earlier decision to revoke visa privileges for diplomatic and service passport holders, calling it a breach of international law and the 2010 visa agreement. Georgia has enjoyed visa-free travel to the bloc since 2017.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Russia Today
2 hours ago
- Russia Today
The snowflakes of information war: How the New York Times sinned by honesty
It's a platitude that war kills not only people but truth. And as all platitudes, the statement is true, boring, and misleading. Because it omits the real murderers: 'War' does not, actually, kill truth; people kill truth. War just tempts them to do so as few other things – such as job applications or marriage – can. The flipside of that fact is that it is perfectly possible to stick to the truth – or at least make an honest effort to do so – in war, too. That effort is different from 'getting it right.' Think of, for example, George Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia', his unabashedly personal account of the Spanish Civil War. It was not even meant to be neutral because he sided with – indeed fought for – the underdog Trotskyists; historians, as always, feel they know better about the context and details; and – notwithstanding the sad mainstream sanctification Orwell has suffered posthumously at the hands of conformist mediocrities – 'Homage to Catalonia' is, of course, flawed. Saint Orwell was fallible. Duh. But 'Homage to Catalonia' was an honest effort to find out and tell true things about a war and, importantly, from a war. How do we know that? Most of all by reading it, of course. But apart from that, there is another test: the manner in which it was received when it came out, namely badly. Making no concessions to what his audience might want to read, Orwell had trouble getting 'Homage to Catalonia' published and rightly suspected that was due to its politics, which antagonized everyone: Orwell's own tribe, the Left, no less than the Right. In the end – with the work, in Orwell's words, 'boycotted by the British press' – barely over a third of its modest first edition of 1,500 copies were sold. Homage to Catalonia is a modern classic now. But when it hit the shelves in 1938 and until Orwell died in 1950, it was a dud. That's, in essence, because it was too honest. Without stretching the comparison too far, it is fair to say that recently we have witnessed the same principle at work, when the New York Times published an article by photographer and reporter Nanna Heitmann. Under the title 'A Landscape of Death: What's Left Where Ukraine Invaded Russia', Heitmann's sophisticated account is based on her own six-day visit to the Russian town of Sudzha and its surroundings. Sudzha is located in Kursk Region, which borders Ukraine and where Kiev's forces staged a large-scale incursion that brought great destruction, fierce fighting, and ended in a – predictable – fiasco for Ukraine. As its title indicates, Heitmann's article gives much room to the devastation and suffering wrought by the fighting. She also describes a surprise advance by Russia's military through an empty gas pipeline. Throughout she lets individuals with different experiences and points of view speak, civilians and soldiers, and is careful to record official statements from both sides, Ukraine and Russia. It is obvious to any fair reader that no favors are extended to Russia. Heitmann, for instance, dwells on local criticism of Russian evacuation efforts and the adverse health effects suffered by some of the ethnically Chechen fighters who carried out the pipeline operation. She ends her story by reporting both a local man's hope for reconstruction and the skepticism of a woman who cannot see a future for herself in the region, whether reconstructed or not. The reactions by high-ranking Ukrainian officials and media outlets in Ukraine to Heitmann's article have been hostile. Georgy Tikhy, spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, tagged the New York Times in an X post accusing Heitmann of reproducing 'Russian propaganda' and engaging in 'Duranty-level manipulation.' Walter Duranty was an American journalist who is now infamous for spreading Stalinist deceptions. Heitmann has done nothing remotely comparable. Tikhy's wildly unfair comparison reveals his malicious intent, namely to smear Heitmann as badly as he can before the public in general and her employer in particular. Ironically though not surprisingly, it is not Heitmann but the Ukrainian government official who is conducting information war here, and in an especially dirty, personal way. That Heitmann is being targeted by a systematic campaign is obvious from the involvement, as if on cue, of additional attackers: The so-called Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) under the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine has joined in, also charging Heitmann with manipulation. In particular, the CCD is angry about the fact that Heitmann didn't spend precious words on reiterating the Ukrainian and Western narrative about wicked Russia invading Ukraine. Notwithstanding that every New York Times reader is certain to have had that story hammered into their consciousness for years already not only by that newspaper but every other Western mainstream news outlet, Heitmann, actually writing about a case in which Ukraine – proudly – invaded Russia, is faulted for not ritualistically restating that part of the Western narrative. In the same spirit – and in an especially perverse but also revealing turn – the CCD even went as far as to explicitly impugn Heitmann's 'neutrality.' Being unbiased, so the message from the Ukrainian information warriors, is wrong in and of itself. The Kiev regime, in other words, has a right to expect bias in its favor: mere honesty will not do. This is nothing less than an astonishingly aggressive and open demand for the Western media to be as submissive and streamlined as Ukraine's is. It is testimony to the sense of entitlement that the West has long fostered among its political and media proxies in Kiev. A 'colleague' also hurried to put the boot in, denouncing Heitmann for 'moral equivalency' – translation: honesty we do not like – and gaining access to Sudzha through soldiers from Russia's Chechen Akhmat unit. That, in and of itself, is, we are to understand, an unforgivable sin. Curiously enough, the same logic doesn't seem to apply when Western journalists 'embed' – a telling term – with Western forces conducting wars of aggression, regime change operations, and 'counter-insurgency,' that is, dirty war campaigns of torture and assassination. It also seems to make no difference to Heitmann's denouncer from within the profession – how very Stalinist, really – that her article shows no favor to Akhmat. Regarding its soldiers, too, it is simply factual and calm. Clearly, though, hysterical condemnation is the least Kiev and its Western propagandists feel they have a right to expect. In reality, Heitmann's article is informative, well-written, and free of bias. What is really intriguing about the backlash against her work is not the work – which is simply good, conscientious reporting – but the backlash itself. The high-level and widespread hostile reaction to Heitmann's piece reveals only one thing, and it is not anything about Heitmann and her work: Western and Ukrainian authorities and information warriors have had it far too easy for far too long. Pampered by years of easily feeding their bias to Western publics, while any dissent was repressed and marginalized, they react with allergic fury to even modest signs of unbiased, clear-eyed reporting breaking through into a mainstream outlet. How fragile they must feel.
Russia Today
2 hours ago
- Russia Today
EU using Goebbels-style propaganda to fuel anti-Russia frenzy
The EU has been locked in an anti-Russian 'frenzy,' focusing exclusively on militarization instead of fixing domestic issues that plague the bloc, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Lavrov made the comments on Tuesday at a press conference in Moscow following talks with his Mozambican counterpart, Maria Manuela Lucas. He condemned the increasingly hostile rhetoric and actions of the EU, claiming that the 'lessons of history' have been 'poorly learned by the current generations of Germans, French, and representatives of other European countries.' 'Europe has gone into a frenzy… They are inciting their peoples in every way possible, instilling in them the spirit of Goebbels' propaganda that Russia is... an existential threat, and that Russia is about to attack Europe, so they have to forget about social problems, about failures in the economy, and about the process of deindustrialization, which is observed in Germany and other European countries,' while focusing exclusively on 'the militarization of Europe,' Lavrov said. Last week, the European Commission unveiled a record-high long-term €2 trillion ($2.33 trillion) draft budget for 2028-34 – a €600 billion increase compared to the 2021-27 budget. The draft envisioned a fivefold increase in defense-related investment, which reached €131 billion, as well as doubling the 'Ukraine facility', a dedicated fund, to €100 billion in loans and grants. The proposed budget has faced criticism from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who claims that the draft prioritizes Ukraine's potential entry into the bloc above everything else. Around a quarter of the sum would directly benefit Kiev in various ways, Orban said, adding that other areas such as agriculture are subject to cuts. 'This budget would destroy the European Union. I don't think this budget will even survive next year,' Orban said, predicting that the proposal will be significantly watered down before member states consider approving it.
Russia Today
4 hours ago
- Russia Today
Two bald men fighting over a comb: The UK–Germany ‘alliance'
Only a complete imbecile would trust the British as allies. History offers no example of London taking serious risks for the sake of partnership. On the contrary, Britain's favorite geopolitical sport has long been to encourage continental states to exhaust themselves in battles with stronger adversaries – only for the UK to later emerge as the diplomatic victor. Throwing allies under the bus is tradition, not exception. Which is why it's safe to assume that the German government is fully aware the so-called Kensington Treaty – signed with the UK on July 17, 2025 – is not a serious agreement. There are several reasons for this. First, both countries are NATO members, and only the United States enjoys the freedom to bend bloc rules. Second, neither Britain nor Germany possesses the military resources or political will to rebuild a meaningful defense posture. And third, there's no one for them to fight – at least not credibly. This odd little treaty capped off what was already a turbulent week in global affairs. It began with contradictory statements from US President Donald Trump about Ukraine and ended with yet another Israeli airstrike – this time targeting Syria, where the new regime is battling internal unrest. Amid such chaos, the Berlin-London accord adds the perfect dash of absurdity: a ceremonial nod to 'unity' that distracts from the West's deepening dysfunction. The British and German leaders say their pact covers everything from defense cooperation to environmental policy. In reality, it's a political pantomime. Unlike the raw aggression of Israel or the economic ultimatums coming from Washington, this is Western Europe's softer contribution to the week's geopolitical theatre – a performance full of noise but void of substance. Consider the Israeli strikes on Syria, a continuation of Tel Aviv's self-declared role as 'sheriff of the Middle East.' Israel's foreign policy, once bound by red lines, now seems guided only by brute impulse. Whether such a strategy is sustainable remains to be seen, but its message is clear – and chilling. Then there's President Trump. His recent comments on Russia and the Ukraine conflict suggest a new American approach: shift the entire burden of confronting Moscow onto European allies. The scale of those expected 'costs' is still unknown, but the confusion in European capitals was immediate. Trump's remarks left the EU's biggest players looking disoriented, scrambling to understand what Washington actually expects. For months now, the Western Europeans have played the role of geopolitical extras – sitting through summits, issuing statements, and floating vague proposals like a 'peacekeeping force' for Ukraine. The idea is laughable. Moscow would never allow it, and everyone knows it. Yet these leaders continue to perform, hoping performance alone will pass for policy. Now Trump has called their bluff. He wants cash, troops, commitment. NATO's new Secretary General Mark Rutte – now reborn as an American loyalist – welcomed the idea enthusiastically. But key European capitals balked. France, Italy, and the Czech Republic refused to participate in the new American initiative. France, despite loud rhetoric, has provided only token military aid to Kiev – ten times less than Germany. Italy has given even fewer crumbs. So what do Western Europe's 'leading powers' do instead? They stage a show. Enter the Kensington Treaty. Its breadth is comical: a proposed direct rail link between London and Berlin 'to improve defense capabilities,' plans for school tourism, joint forums on business, and German investment in Britain to create about 600 jobs. This is not geopolitics; it's domestic public relations dressed up as diplomacy. But the core problem runs deeper. For decades now, Western Europe has struggled with a contradiction it cannot resolve. On the one hand, its politicians recognize the need to appear decisive in security matters. On the other, they know that real military action – especially against Russia – is a fantasy. There is no scenario where they could win. So they gesture, but never act. After the launch of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, this tension briefly gave these Western European leaders a sense of purpose. They could speak boldly, posture grandly. But in the three years since, not much has changed. Despite grand declarations and strategy papers, the bloc has failed to meaningfully expand its defense capacity. At most, they might manage to recruit a few thousand mercenaries from impoverished Balkan states to send to the front. Even this is unlikely. Any serious move toward independent military power in Western Europe will immediately trigger scrutiny from Washington. The United States has no intention of allowing its trans-Atlantic partners to act unilaterally – no matter how often it demands they 'do more.' When Trump says the bloc must rearm, he means it should buy American weapons. Not build its own industry, not forge its own path. Just consume US exports. This explains why the supposed 'militarization' of Germany has sparked so much talk but so little change. It isn't about Berlin becoming a threat – it's about Berlin spending more on F-35s. Western Europe remains dependent, constrained, and cautious. Yes, it can still cause harm to Russia in limited ways. But the image its politicians sell to their voters – that of a bold, united, and prepared half-continent – is an illusion. The new Anglo-German treaty is just the latest act in this tragicomic performance. It makes no military sense, no diplomatic sense, and no strategic sense. But it makes perfect political sense – for a Western Europe that is drifting, divided, and desperate to look busy while doing nothing at article was first published by Vzglyad newspaper and was translated and edited by the RT team.
