Nika Gvaramia, leader of the Coalition for Change, described Washington’s and Brussels’ latest decisions as “a very painful blow” to Georgian Dream.

According to Gvaramia, the objectives set out in the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act and the new package of EU sanctions targeting the Kulevi oil refinery and Georgian crypto platforms represent targeted punishment against Bidzina Ivanishvili’s government, rather than against Georgia, and require even more active and coordinated work by the opposition and society.

“Today, Georgian Dream received two extremely precise and painful blows, hitting its most vulnerable points: money and ties with Russia. Washington included in the National Defense Authorization Act a requirement to investigate the extent to which the regime’s security structures have been penetrated by Russian and Chinese intelligence networks. The same act linked military cooperation with Georgia to the release of political prisoners. This is a bipartisan red card for Georgian Dream, and it will make it very difficult for any U.S. official or administration to reconsider relations with Georgian Dream in a more lenient direction based on specific contextual considerations or situational needs, even in the interests of transactional politics.

“Brussels, meanwhile, today banned transactions with the Kulevi oil refinery, where Russian oil had been quietly processed for months and then exported as Georgian. Georgian Dream and Ivanishvili personally were making enormous amounts of money from this, while Georgia was suffering severe reputational damage as a country helping Russia evade sanctions and profiting from the war.

“Georgian crypto platforms were also included in the EU’s 21st sanctions package: once again, infrastructure for helping Russia evade sanctions, which is just as effective a mechanism for enriching the regime and harming the country as the Kulevi refinery. After crypto-service platforms, crypto mining is next, an area in which the entire Georgian Dream elite is involved, while Ivanishvili personally owns the largest mining facilities, which generate enormous revenues using practically state resources, raise electricity prices for citizens, and employ virtually no one while bringing no meaningful benefit to the country’s economy, including in the form of tax revenues.

“Clearly, this is not punishment of Georgia. It is punishment of Ivanishvili’s regime - very clear, timely, properly calibrated and correctly targeted.

“The key is for all of this to continue at the same pace and with the same straightforwardness. What is decisive here is how we behave, both in working with our foreign friends - what Georgian Dream calls sabotage and for which we are being prosecuted - and in our relations with one another and with society inside the country,” Gvaramia wrote.