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Neil Hauer Profile picture
@NeilPHauer
Mar 7, 2023 • 9 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
Georgia's ruling party, having rammed through the first reading of a Russian-style 'foreign agents' law in parliament this afternoon, is now preparing to violently disperse demonstrators protesting the bill with water cannons
Just about every Western partner of Georgia, from international organizations to states, has warned that passing the law will do massive damage to Georgia's relations with them. Ruling Georgian Dream party does not seem to care, and draws closer to killing Georgia's EU bid.
Really does feel like the point of no return for Georgia if the ruling party passes this law. The consequences have been made clear, and it will put an end to any further Georgia-Western integration for the foreseeable future. Georgia deserves better than these criminals.
Georgian riot police now using water cannons and pepper spray nearly indiscriminately on protesters
The symbolism here is over the top. Unbelievable how bad the optics of all this are, let alone the content.
For those unaware, Georgia has probably the most pro-Ukraine/EU population out of any country in the world, save maybe Poland or Baltics. Every second flag in Tbilisi is Ukrainian; every second wall has pro-UA/anti-RU graffiti. That's what makes the govt's moves so despicable
Georgian Dream is in power for many reasons, but two main ones: 1. they always promised EU/NATO integration 2. opposition (led by former president Saakashvili) was broadly despised. This turn to ram through a law that will kill EU ambitions has come in past couple months.
Georgia's relations with EU/US under Georgian Dream have been on the decline for 2-3 years, but present events are far more damning than anything to date
(This is a very basic summary - for more detailed coverage, read @OCMediaorg @eurasianet who have great reporting and analysis on Georgia, including live from the protests right now)

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More from @NeilPHauer

Neil Hauer Profile picture
Dec 4, 2023
The current shift to a pessimistic narrative around Ukraine following the failure of the counteroffensive reminds me of so many previous seemingly then-infallibly true narratives around the war. A quick thread:
1. Before the war, the expectation in many quarters was that if Russia would invade Ukraine, it would quickly crushed organized Ukrainian resistance by its superior quantity and quality of men and materiel. For many reasons, this didn't happen, but it felt incredibly likely.
2. Then, as Ukraine successfully defended Kyiv and Russian troops bungled everywhere, the narrative shifted again, to an incompetent Russian army that stood no chance and would quickly fall apart everywhere. This euphoria dominated from April for a few months last year.
Read 11 tweets
Neil Hauer Profile picture
Oct 30, 2023
Almost five full months into Ukraine's counteroffensive, with action winding down, I think it's safe to say it has been a serious failure. The overarching goal was to liberate a large amount of territory, including the cities of Tokmak and Melitopol, and this has not happened. Image
There's obviously a million caveats and context/explanations you can add, but if you showed the above map of the next five months of gains to someone on June 1, they would undoubtedly regard it as a serious failure
There's a lot of people responding to this who don't seem to understand that Ukraine needs to liberate its territory in order to win. There were a ton of resources compiled for this offensive with this goal in mind. It hasn't succeeded. Don't know what else to tell you.
Read 5 tweets
Neil Hauer Profile picture
Mar 30, 2023
Extremely worrying news from Russia. Evan is a professional and excellent journalist. It looks like the Kremlin is thinking about making him a hostage.
Russian MFA spox Zakharova echoes the spying allegations and implies there are other foreign journalists they'd like to arrest. Evan was the first, but unlikely to be the last. t.me/MariaVladimiro…
Read 6 tweets
Neil Hauer Profile picture
Mar 27, 2023
Concluding that Russia's offensive on Bakhmut is "culminating" becomes kind of meaningless when you use the term every 48 hours for three months straight
Have Ukrainian lines in Bakhmut more or less stabilized in the past week? It certainly seems so! But I'm not sure how insightful one's analysis is when you simply continue to repeat the same phrases until they're eventually correct.
To be more precise, while the battle for the flanks has stabilized, the Russian advance within Bakhmut city itself still continues - at a slow pace perhaps, but every day Ukrainian control shrinks
Read 4 tweets
Neil Hauer Profile picture
Mar 21, 2023
Just chatting with a journalist friend here about how abysmal @amnesty's work from Armenia/Karabakh and Ukraine has been. Pretty incredible that @DRovera and @AgnesCallamard are still in their positions.
Still remember describing to @DRovera an incident the previous day where we saw a van cut up with small arms fire. She insisted that we were wrong and it 'had to be mortars.' *She wasn't there.*

Why anyone still donates to this organization, I'll never understand.
She came to me to set her up with a Karabakh fixer, but why be held accountable for your terrible work 🤡
Read 4 tweets
Neil Hauer Profile picture
Sep 26, 2022
Five days into Russian mobilization and flight and it already feels like social tensions in Armenia are hitting the boil. Can only imagine what it's like in Georgia.
The number of times I've heard some Russian guy here tell someone (in the only non-Russian words he knows) to 'speak Russian' is absurd
A very noticeable difference here in Armenia w/the Russians who came in March, and those who came now. The majority from the former seem to have made a genuine attempt to integrate: learning some Armenian, condemning AZ attacking, etc. New ones are largely arrogant and combative.
Read 4 tweets

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