According to Anitta Hipper, the European Commission’s lead spokesperson for foreign affairs and security, Georgian Dream’s actions are clearly inspired by the Russian propaganda textbook.

Hipper said that Georgian Dream’s verbal attacks were “desperate attempts to mask a repressive regime.”

“Just in terms of the context and the actions that are clearly textbook Russian propaganda. When we look at what’s happening in Georgia, we see that facts are speaking louder than words.

When you need to jail the opposition, when you go after independent media, when you target civil society, when you need to change laws so that your ruling party has an advantage – you’re not speaking the language of democracy.

These are the actions from our side: we have always condemned any form of violence, so we are strongly against that, including the verbal attacks that we see from the Georgian Dream, which are some desperate attempts to mask a repressive regime that is now being put in place,” Hipper said.