Tuesday 20 / May / 2025
Tbilisi: Georgia's Parliament Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze resigned on Friday amid mass protests in the capital of Tbilisi. Kobakhidze's decision to step down followed mass demonstrations and clashes between protesters and law enforcement in front of parliament. At lest 240 people, including 80 police officers, were injured. "Two patients are undergoing surgeries. One patient's condition is grave. Currently, 102 people remain in different hospitals," Georgia's Deputy Health Minister Zaza Bokhua told local TV. Protests began after a delegation from Russia's Duma, it's lower house of parliament, took part in the 26th session of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO) in Tbilisi on Thursday. Sergei Gavrilov, an MP from Russia, opened the session in the Georgian parliament building and addressed participants from the parliament speaker's seat. Outraged opposition lawmakers interrupted the session and thousands of protesters gathered in front of parliament, demanding the resignation of Kobakhidze, the interior minister and the head of the State Security Service. A total of 305 people were detained for various offenses, Georgia's Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Bortsvadze said. Police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators, who attempted to storm parliament. The Russian delegation was evacuated and flew back home. "The assault on the parliament and police was led by destructive political forces once again taking advantage of our fellow citizens' honest emotions," Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze said in a statement on Friday. Bakhtadze called on the public to maintain peace, vowing that authorities would protect the safety of every citizen and ensure public order. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the incident in Tbilisi a "Russophobic provocation". Russia-Georgia relations have been tense for years over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well as a brief armed conflict in August 2008. Russia's President Vladimir Putin later banned passenger flights from Russia to Georgia starting July 8 following the incident.
