🇬🇪Sanctions are already working.
Bidzina Ivanishvili is petrified, and his panic proves it.
How do we know? By watching how he and Georgian Dream have reacted to the wave of sanctions over the past weeks.
🧵Let’s go through it ...
1/11
🇪🇪🇱🇻🇱🇹When the Baltic states imposed sanctions, Ivanishvili scoffed.
He ridiculed them, dismissing their actions as "only hurting the Baltic people". There was no retaliation, no panic.
Indifference was the message.
2/11
Then came the UK and US Magnitsky sanctions.
The tone shifted instantly. Ivanishvili slammed the panic button .
What is he so afraid of?
Two things:
1️⃣ Appearing weak.
2️⃣ Cracks and defections within his power structure.
3/11
Just hours after the sanctions hit, Ivanishvili scrambled to signal strength:
🔹Vakhtang Gomelauri (sanctioned) promoted to Vice PM.
🔹Medals of honor announced for him and other sanctioned loyalists.
🔹Compensation was promised: “The state will cover their financial losses.”
4/11
😱This isn’t confidence. This is fear.
When you have to reward loyalty with promotions, medals, and money—just to keep your circle intact—it’s not strength.
It’s desperation.
5/11
But here’s the problem for Ivanishvili and Georgian Dream:
They don’t understand how Magnitsky sanctions work.
Magnitsky sanctions aren’t just symbolic. They are isolating, consequential, and contagious.
6/11
Under Magnitsky sanctions, anyone who interacts with sanctioned individuals can be targeted next:
🔹Banks handling their accounts.
🔹Colleagues working with them.
🔹Businesses serving them (even pizza delivery companies, in theory).
No one is safe.
7/11
By doubling down to protect his loyalists, Ivanishvili is dragging everyone with him:
🔹The self-proclaimed government
🔹The election fraudsters of Georgian Dream
🔹The enablers, the corrupt financiers, the propagandists—all of them are now in the crosshairs
8/11
Ivanishvili knows defections are coming and he is freaking out.
No one wants to risk their future over a leader in panic mode.
Sanctions are a wedge. They create pressure. And under pressure, systems like Georgian Dream begin to crack.
9/11
The walls are closing in on Ivanishvili.
His fear is justified.
Sanctions are working, and his actions betray the desperation of a regime in freefall.
The only question is: Who will defect first?
10/11
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11/11buymeacoffee.com/terjehelland
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🇬🇪Georgia is sliding into a legal dictatorship. Not overnight. Step by step. Each protest is met with a new tailored law.
Each law designed to exhaust, criminalize, and isolate society until resistance itself becomes illegal.
Here is how the latest law changes everything.
1/11
Step one: the so-called “Russian law.” Sold as transparency. In reality, a stigma law targeting civil society and media. Georgians protested in massive numbers. The government learned protest alone would not stop it.
2/11
Step two: halting EU accession talks. A strategic break with Europe, framed as “sovereignty.”
Georgians protested again. The message from society was clear: Europe is the choice, not isolation.
3/11
🇬🇪Georgian Dream is Europe’s most un-democratic and human rights-violating force currently in power.
Today, they announced new amendments to the "Law on Grants" that criminalize receiving foreign support, restrict political participation, and outlaw core democratic activity
1/12
Georgian Dream is doing this for one simple reason: it works. Every previous authoritarian law has been met only with Western “concern,” “worry,” and polite “urges to reconsider.”
No consequences. No costs.
GD feel absolute power and they use it to crush all opposition.
2/12
They can do it because EU and US politicians are not reacting. Silence has become permission. Each non-response signals that the next anti democratic escalation will also be met with no reactions.
3/12 civil.ge/archives/719193
🇬🇪Georgia and Georgian Dream is emerging as a key enabler of Russia’s sanctioned shadow fleet.
New reporting by Finland’s YLE reveals how Georgia-registered companies are keeping Russian oil tankers operational despite EU sanctions.
1/11
At the center is Arnika Trade LLC, a company registered in Tbilisi, identified as a key intermediary supplying spare parts for Finnish Wärtsilä engines used on Russian tankers under sanctions.
2/11
These are not old contracts or accidental spillovers.
The reporting documents systematic deliveries from 2023–2025, routed via third countries specifically to evade EU and Western export controls.
3/11
🇬🇪🇮🇷Georgia is strategically very important to the Iranian regime.
Not marginal. Not incidental.
Under Georgian Dream, Georgia has become a country Iran actively relies on to move money, goods, and political influence.
1/11
That importance did not emerge by accident. It grew as Georgian Dream steadily lowered political, diplomatic, and economic barriers between Tbilisi and Tehran, even as Iran faced deeper international isolation.
2/11
In 2024 alone, Georgia’s prime minister @PM_Kobakhidze made two official visits to Iran. These were not routine diplomatic exchanges. They occurred at moments when most Western-aligned governments were deliberately keeping distance.
3/11
🇬🇪Georgia is no longer a democracy.
This is not “backsliding” or “under strain”.
It is an authoritarian system where power is, right now, being engineered to never change hands.
Calling it anything else is denial.
1/11
📷Maurizio Orlando / Hans Lucas
Georgian Dream didn’t stumble into this.
They built it.
🔹Law by law
🔹Fine by fine
🔹Ban by ban
Repression that looks legal still counts as repression.
2/11 terjehelland1.substack.com/p/georgia-has-…
This includes the systematic party takeover of the state itself.
🔹Courts
🔹Prosecutors
🔹Regulators
🔹Electoral bodies
🔹Oversight institutions
Once captured, these bodies stop restraining power and start enforcing it.
3/11
🇮🇷🇬🇪Over the past two years, Georgia’s ruling party Georgian Dream has quietly deepened ties with Iran. Not rhetorically. Practically. Through trade, business access, and political signaling that matters far more than speeches.
1/9
While Iran faces heavy international sanctions, Georgia has emerged as a low-friction gateway: company registrations, banking access, logistics, and regional transit. This is not accidental. It is policy enabled by political choice. 2/9
Thousands of Iranian-linked businesses are now registered in Georgia. Trade volumes are up. Air links operate. Financial and commercial channels remain unusually permissive for a country formally aligned with the West. 3/9