Last year, the TV host insulted Vladimir Putin in an obscene rant. Now, he says, Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov is trying to kill him, and Georgian authorities seem to agree.
The labor migrants are trying to return home after losing their jobs in the coronavirus pandemic. Tensions are rising, and a protest on the border has been violently broken up by Russian police.
Until recently, oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan had managed to stay in the government’s good graces. But then he started criticizing them more sharply, and now the authorities have unveiled several criminal cases against him.
The seizures follow shortly after the former official linked to the firms had taken to Facebook with a series of scandalous allegations involving Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Tbilisi may have refused to let the insult slide because Georgia’s coronavirus response has become an electoral platform for the governing party, which faces a parliamentary vote this fall.
