Kelly Degnan [former US Ambassador to Georgia], was the first to call this Georgian law a “Russian law”, now from the new administration, we know how these schemes operate, how USAID, NED were involved to undermine democracy in other countries. Such a statement made today Speaker of the Georgian Parliament.

“The Romans were wise people, and I have repeated their sayings many times – “Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi”, which means “Gods may do what cattle may not.” This is how geopolitics works, with disparities between large and small. What some want for themselves, they are reluctant to grant others. Moscow and other capitals have been reluctant to grant us certain things, but we must look after ourselves. We withstood that pressure then.

The most interesting thing is that it has the same name – ‘transparency of foreign influence’ – in this case, specifically at higher education institutions. Even terminologically, it’s identical to our law on Transparency of Foreign Influence.

In 2023, the Biden administration’s ambassador, Kelly Degnan, was the first to call this Georgian law a ‘Russian law.’ She first said it, she invented this term, and now from the new administration, we know how these schemes operate, how USAID, NED, and other funders were involved, how they give directives to their funded NGOs to undermine democracy in other countries, how they control the media.

Additionally, recent information has emerged regarding an American organisation called Internews, which controlled thousands of media outlets to disseminate propaganda aligned with its funders’ agendas. This suggests that the former U.S. ambassador contributed to creating a misleading narrative at the time, claiming it was based on the ‘intelligence services handbook.’

Indeed, the hybrid warfare tactics we witnessed in 2023 resembled a scenario straight from an intelligence services handbook. The then-US Ambassador was the source of absolutely false accusations, first stigmatizing the draft law, then funding a violent attack on parliament through USAID or other such organisations that the US government now calls fraudulent.

Remember that for the first time in Georgia’s history, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at a person, attempting to burn a police officer alive. Two years have passed since 2023, and not a single outspoken diplomat has condemned the throwing of Molotov cocktails – quite the opposite”, - said Shalva Papuashvili.