Two years ago, two days of protests were enough to force Georgia’s government into an embarrassing U-turn. It had tried to introduce a “foreign agents” bill – which critics likened to legislation passed by President Vladimir Putin to stifle dissent in Russia – but backed down after fierce demonstrations sparked by the bill’s first reading.

“We fought it off like hell, used every instrument at our disposal,” recalls Ana Tavazde, one of tens of thousands who demonstrated against the bill, which would have forced media and other organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence” or be fined.

But the protesters’ victory was short-lived. The government revived the bill last year – and this time would not back down. The parliament approved it in May, despite huge opposition on the streets.

After the ruling Georgian Dream party – which declared victory anew after a disputed election in October – delayed the country’s long-awaited European Union membership bid until 2028, Tavazde was one of thousands of Georgians to take to the streets once again. The government invested in water cannons, according to local media reports, and started making mass arrests.

Since then, Georgia’s government has shown little sign of shifting its course, which many in the former Soviet country feel is taking the country back into the Kremlin’s orbit. And with the protest movement now approaching its third month, it is not clear what can break the stalemate.

Multiple opposition politicians have been publicly beaten, some in broad daylight. Hundreds of protesters have been arrested, of whom more than 300 allege suffering beatings, torture and other ill-treatment at the hands of law enforcement, according to Amnesty International. The police’s presence at rallies has been bolstered by masked men, who do not wear uniforms displaying their department and rank.

Extreme measures

“Today, almost a year later, you would say this has become a really nasty authoritarian regime.”

Pro-Western Salome Zourabichvili, who described the elections as “rigged” and called on Georgians to protest in October, was replaced as president by far-right former soccer star Mikheil Kavelashvili in mid-December. The government imposed further restrictions on freedom of assembly at the end of the year.

At the start of February, it proposed more extreme measures that would increase detention periods and fines for certain offenses, such as disorderly conduct or disobeying law enforcement officers, and limit the areas in which protests can be held, local outlet OC Media reported.

On February 5, the party announced it would be introducing unspecified laws targeted at the media and civil society and expelled 49 opposition MPs from Parliament. Three Georgian Dream MPs resigned, supposedly to form a new “healthy opposition ” – with the approval of the ruling party’s parliamentary speaker. On the same day, the prime minister called for “a sort of Nuremburg trial” to investigate the rule of UNM, the opposition party which governed from 2003 to 2012. The Georgian government has been approached for comment, but did not respond.

Journalist Mzia Amaglobeli is facing up to seven years in prison if convicted of assaulting a police officer. The founder of two independent publications, Batumelebi and Netgazeti, she was detained after allegedly slapping a police officer at a protest last month. The European Parliament has claimed Amaglobeli was “unlawfully arrested” and that the charges against her are “politically motivated.”

Soon after her detention, Amaglobeli started a hunger strike, which she has now been on for 34 days, to demand her release. When asked on February 4 how Amaglobeli’s hunger strike could end, Georgian Dream’s chairman said: “Hunger usually leads to death.”

The International Federation of Journalists has urged the Georgian government to “release Amaglobeli immediately and to stop its crackdown on journalists and independent media.”

Staying on the winning side

For many in this ex-Soviet country, the idea of pivoting towards Russia – which invaded in 2008 and continues to occupy 20% of Georgia’s territory – is unthinkable. Over 80% support EU membership, according to polls, and every party’s campaign platform for the October election included the pursuit of EU membership. Campaign posters for Georgian Dream even merged its logo with the gold stars of the EU flag.

So why has the government turned away from such a popular policy?

“I think he just kind of assumes that Moscow is going to win this war,” Mitchell added, referring to Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgian Dream’s founder and honorary chairman.

“And he’s going to stay on the winning side.”

Bidzina Ivanishvili made his fortune in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union in Russia in the 1990s and is estimated by Bloomberg to be worth $7.7 billion – a quarter of Georgia’s GDP in 2023. Protesters, some of whom have donned masks of his face at protests, see him as pushing Moscow’s agenda in this ex-Soviet country despite no longer holding any elected position.

Chugoshvili was one of several Georgian Dream politicians who resigned in 2019 after the parliament did not pass an amendment which would have made the electoral system fully proportional. “It was obvious that (Georgian Dream) was becoming obsessed with control,” said Chugoshvili, who co-founded Egeria Solutions, an NGO which has worked on European integration projects, after leaving the party.

“Georgian Dream and Bidzina plan to stay in power for ever. And they cannot do this while integrating into the EU and NATO.”

“Some local outlets are totally funded by USAID or affiliated organisations,” said Ostiller.

“They have no back-up, no savings. They will close, and if funding returns, reopening them will be far more difficult.”

Culture war rhetoric

In a country where the conservative Georgian Orthodox Church exerts massive influence, Ivanishvili has also leaned into “culture war” politics, observers say.

The results of last year’s elections, in which Georgian Dream claimed to receive about 54% of the vote, have been widely disputed; however, the party undoubtedly still has some support.

“It’s probably got a solid 35 to 45%,” Mitchell estimated. “They’re popular enough that they still have a base.”

But for a younger generation, who have only known Georgia as committed to EU and NATO membership and Russia as a threat, the anti-Western rhetoric doesn’t seem to land, and the government’s moves towards authoritarianism don’t seem to inspire fear. Protests are continuing into their third month.

Since protests broke out on November 28, Keren Esebua has been on the streets almost every night in Zugdidi – a city located just 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Abkhazia, a breakaway Georgian region occupied by Russia since 2008.

“I lost my home in Sukhumi, in Abkhazia, in 1993. And I was here in Zugdidi, blocking the way for Russian troops in 2008 when I was 19.

“I’m not giving Russia any kind of opportunity to swallow up Georgia again.”

The split screen is horrifying. On one side, a White House whose policy is in turns strident, revisionist, and then – it seems, sometimes – in urgent need of clarification. On the other, Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelensky is outside, looking in, on peace talks, while hundreds die daily on frontlines where Moscow is winning, and children are frequently pulled from the rubble of Russian airstrikes.

As Ukraine’s brutal war nears its third year, the two visions risk becoming irreconcilable.

The White House’s contradictory positions will be partly to blame here. We have seen a startling week in which the US Secretary of Defence Peter Hegseth said Ukraine could not join NATO or get its pre-2014 borders back. He either broadcast a key plank of US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s secret peace deal inadvertently or gave away a key part of Ukraine’s diplomatic negotiating hand to the shock of Europe.

Ukraine’s allies may have all known that, in reality, it would not join NATO soon, or get its borders back to when the east and Crimea were in its hands, but had kept that as a concession to make to Russia during, not before, negotiations.

It keeps coming.

US Vice President JD Vance told the Wall Street Journal, apparently, the US might send troops to Ukraine, in extremis – that it would use “tools of leverage” both military and economic. Did he really unveil the polar opposite of Hegseth’s comments in Brussels that no American soldiers would go to Ukraine? Why did he not mention Russia at all, when addressing European allies in Munich about largely fictional totalitarianism in western democracies? Also, did Trump misspeak when he said there would be “high-level people” from Russia, Ukraine, and the US in Munich for a key security conference – or did he mean Saudi Arabia?

Moscow and Kyiv didn’t seem to think anyone of that level is going to Munich for those kind of talks. Or are there secret talks happening that Trump cannot keep quiet?

During this short period of whiplash, by the worst battlefield estimates, up to 5,000 troops have been killed or injured on the frontlines in Ukraine. Romania and Moldova have complained of Russian drones interfering in their airspace. At least 13 civilians have died and 72 been injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine. A Russian drone has been fired at Chernobyl nuclear plant, Ukraine said Friday.

A war is happening – and Russia is winning it, at huge cost for Ukraine – while the White House seems to work out what it really thinks in public.

Behind these vacillating positions on NATO membership, Ukraine’s borders and and US troops in Ukraine, lies the darker truth that we simply do not know what Trump and Putin have spoken about, in what Trump has said was more than one call since he came to the White House.

Firstly, it is important to reflect on the precedent here: Trump has swept away three years of isolation of the Kremlin from the West without concessions. He got Marc Fogel released – in exchange, it seems, for Alexander Vinnik, accused of running a multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange, gifting Moscow a moment of staggeringly warm rehabilitation for an American television audience. But there have been no concessions so far, in public, from Russia to Ukraine.

Instead, we had the bizarre revisionism of Trump suggesting Russia invaded because Ukraine was about to join NATO.

To repeat, three exhausting years in, Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked in 2022 out of some strategic sense of concern it needed to project strength along its borders, and mistakenly thinking the invasion would take a matter of weeks, and be welcomed with open arms.

Ukraine wanted warmer relations with the European Union and dreamed of perhaps joining NATO one day, but in the same way Zelensky probably dreamed one day as a young boy of joining the Beatles. Neither was going to happen any time soon.

The revisionist notion that Russia acted to stop Ukraine’s NATO membership is a Kremlin talking point. And it is clear now Trump has spent more time talking to Putin than Zelensky. He even suggested that Zelensky’s time in office might soon end, as he needs to eventually hold elections, and his poll numbers are “not particularly great, to put it mildly”.

It’s hard to understate the impact of the world’s most powerful man suggesting a wartime commander lacks a current mandate and might soon need to step aside. Perhaps this is part of the private plan – it is certainly what Putin wants, as elections would undoubtedly be a mess and produce a mandate that was questioned. It is, above all, potentially catastrophic to Ukrainian morale – soldiers must agree to continue to risk their lives for a president whose key financial backer considers a lame duck.

This is where the two split screens collide.

Trump’s world is one where off-the-cuff statements can be massaged, and his telegenic cabinet overturn the paradigms of global security hourly, without major consequence. Their echo chamber just reassuringly feeds back the corrected version of policy. On the other side of the screen, Ukrainians die, lose territory, see apartment blocks reduced to rubble, consider desertion, and watch the backbone of their western support dissolve.

This is all a symphony of chaos to the Kremlin. They know what their objectives are, which, simply put, amount to whatever they can get. And that is a lot when the key adversary they actually fear, the United States, is so publicly unsure what it wants, why it wants it, and what its red lines are.

Peace talks have started, but the sands are not just shifting for Ukraine, they risk becoming quicksand.

Three Israeli hostages have been freed from Gaza under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas after a dispute this week threatened to derail the deal.

American-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen, Russian-Israeli Alexandre Troufanov and Argentinian-Israeli Iair Horn were released in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, around 10 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET) in the sixth such exchange under the truce. They were seen exiting vehicles surrounded by militants, who ushered the hostages on stage, where the captives addressed the crowd.

The men appeared to be in better health than the three hostages released the previous week, whose condition drew condemnation from Israeli officials.

The three were given what appeared to be bags carrying memorabilia. Horn was seen carrying what appeared to be small hourglasses and Troufanov appeared to face some difficulty climbing down the stairs.

In Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square, the atmosphere was expectant and calm as people holding posters watched the releases live. In Kibbutz Nir Oz, where all the three hostages were taken, families gathered to watch the release. Sagui-Dekel Hen’s family crowded around the television to watch the moment.

Israel is expected to release 369 Palestinian prisoners later Saturday, the Palestinian Prisoner Society said Friday, 333 of whom were arrested in Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. It will be the largest number of Palestinian prisoners released during the exchanges so far.

A crowd of armed militants gathered in Gaza ahead of the release, which took place close to the house of slain former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, killed by Israel in October. Images showed masked fighters carrying weapons and gathering around a stage with flags and images depicting Sinwar and other militant leaders.

“No migration except to Jerusalem,” read a banner festooning the stage, in an apparent rebuke to US President Donald Trump and his plans for a mass displacement of Palestinians from the enclave.

Earlier this week, Hamas said was postponing today’s releases after accusing Israel of violating its commitments to the ceasefire agreement. Amid the dispute, Trump urged Israel to cancel its deal with Hamas and “let all hell break out”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office thanked Trump for his “clear and unequivocal” statement, following the hostages’ release Saturday, saying it helped push Hamas to back down and free the hostages.

In a statement following the latest releases, Hamas said that the only way those still held captive would be freed was “through negotiations and by adhering to the requirements of the ceasefire agreement.”

All three men released on Saturday were kidnapped from the kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 7 attack, and had been held captive for almost 500 days.

They are now back on Israeli soil, the Israeli military said. They are currently undergoing an initial medical assessment at a reception center in southern Israel, according to the military.

Troufanov was 27 years old when he was kidnapped by Palestinian Al-Quds Brigades, a militant group allied with Islamic Jihad, along with his grandmother, Irena Tati, his mother Lena Troufanov and girlfriend Sapir Cohen, who were all released in a previous deal. His father Vitaly was killed during the attack.

Dekel-Chen was 35 years old when he was kidnapped by Hamas while trying to defend the kibbutz from attackers. His wife Avital was pregnant with their third child during the attack, and gave birth to Dekel-Chen’s daughter while he was in captivity. She turned one in December.

Horn, now 46, was also captured by Hamas with his brother Eitan, who remains in captivity.

The Gazan militants have now released a total of 19 Israeli hostages as part of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, of a total of 33 promised at staggered intervals during this stage. Eight of those 33 are dead, according to the Israeli government.

Despite Saturday’s releases, uncertainty looms over the future of the wider agreement. Negotiations on extending the ceasefire – which expires on March 1 – are in doubt.

As well as taking hostages, Palestinian militants killed more than 1,200 people during the October 7 attack. Israeli bombardment of Gaza since has killed more than 48,000 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, reduced much of the enclave to rubble, and led to a humanitarian catastrophe for surviving residents.

The war has spilled over into the wider region, putting Israel in conflict with key Hamas backer Iran, as well as Tehran proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected “outside” interference in the country’s elections, insisting that Germans would decide their democracy for themselves, as he hit back at comments made by US Vice President JD Vance the day before.

Vance delivered a scathing speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, in which he turned on European allies and accused them of suppressing free speech, losing control of immigration and refusing to work with hard-right parties in government.

The audience had been expecting to hear about the Trump administration’s plans to end the war in Ukraine, but instead faced a lecture from Vance, who told European leaders that the biggest threat to their security was “from within.”

Following his speech, Vance met with Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel at the sidelines of the conference, according to a spokesperson for Weidel.

They met in a hotel room for about 30 minutes and spoke about the Ukraine war and German politics, the spokesperson said. The hard-right, anti-immigration party is surging in polls ahead of elections next week.

Standing on the same stage as Vance Saturday, Scholz rejected the vice president’s comments and insisted that Germany would not accept foreign interference in its domestic politics.

“A commitment to ‘never again’ cannot be reconciled with support for the AfD,” Scholz told audiences in the Bavarian capital.

“We will not accept outsiders intervening in our democracy, in our elections, in the democratic formation of opinion in favour of this party,” he continued, adding that that should especially not happen “among friends and allies.”

Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party, as well as Germany’s other mainstream parties, have ruled out working with the AfD, in a stance which has become known as a “firewall.”

Also during his speech, Scholz predicted that the future Berlin government would ease the country’s so-called debt brake, in order to spend more on defense and security. Germany’s debt brake is a constitutional article that prevents the government from borrowing excessively and amassing debt.

Germany’s government last month said it had met NATO’s target to spend 2% of its GDP on defense– this however falls significantly short of the Trump administration’s fresh demand of 5%.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that his US counterpart Donald Trump meeting Russian leader Vladimir Putin before him would be “dangerous,” as he admitted he had no guarantees from Trump that he would be first in line in peace talks.

Zelensky spoke in a week when a phone call between Putin and Trump raised fears in Kyiv that it was being frozen out of negotiations, with the White House also downplaying the prospects of Ukraine joining NATO.

In an exchange which prompted laughter from the crowd, Zelensky also admitted to having told Trump that Putin is afraid of him.

“I told Trump that Putin is afraid of him and he heard me. And now Putin knows,” Zelensky said wryly.

The Ukrainian president added that Putin appears to be the biggest influence on NATO and reiterated that peace talks on ending the conflict could not go ahead without Kyiv’s involvement.

“Right now, the most influential member of NATO seems to be Putin – because his whims have the power to block NATO decisions,” Zelensky said.

“Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement. And the same rule should apply to all of Europe,” he added.

“No decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine. No decisions about Europe without Europe. Europe must have a seat at the table when decisions about Europe are being made,” Zelensky continued.

Zelensky warned the days of America’s guaranteed support for Europe are over.

“A few days ago, President Trump told me about his conversation with Putin. Not once did he mention that America needs Europe at that table. That says a lot,” he said.

“The old days are over – when America supported Europe just because it always had,” he added.

The Ukrainian leader spoke the day after US Vice President JD Vance eviscerated America’s European allies at the security conference, in a speech that barely touched on the issue of Ukraine and a potential settlement of Russia.

“Yesterday here in Munich, the US vice president made it clear – decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending. From now on, things will be different, and Europe needs to adjust to that,” Zelensky said.

The Ukrainian president called for a united European army, as he acknowledged that the US may not continue to provide military support as it once did.

“Let’s be honest – now we can’t rule out the possibility that America might say ‘No’ to Europe on issues that threaten it. Many leaders have talked about Europe that needs its own military – an Army of Europe,” he said.