Georgian riot police violence as crowds protest Putin-inspired laws
Demonstrators had ringed the parliament building all night intent on preventing access to MPs to block the passage of Putinesque laws they believed put their country on the path to dictatorship and back in the embrace of Moscow.
"They want to drag us back to autocracy to the country they occupied us for too many years," one protestor told Sky News.
The police succeeded in clearing one entrance to parliament.
Flank after flank of interior ministry security forces, backed by helmeted riot police and water cannon trucks, are now in a tense standoff with a multi-coloured sea of protestors on the corner of the parliament building.
The blue and green colours of Ukraine and the European Union jostle with the red and white of Georgia's national colours.
The protestors have been peaceful but the police have not. They have unleashed snatch squads barreling into the crowd.
Sky News witnessed as masked security forces seized one man raining blows on his unprotected head.
The protestors have failed in their effort to cut off parliament from MPs but their numbers are swelling.
"We will not give up," one woman told us.
"We cannot allow them to take our freedom."
https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-news-putin-zelenskyy-latest-live-updates-12541713this sounds so familiar - seems others apart from the Ukie cossacks value their freedm highly too !
( the russ however have learnt to live without it )
