SPECIAL REPORT: Is Putin coming for Georgia?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2024
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We are on the ground in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where Europe and Asia meet. For weeks hundreds of thousands of (overwhelmingly) Gen Zs have taken to the streets to protest against their government. The gates of Parliament have been stormed, tear gas repeatedly deployed, protesters beaten up and with even a fist fight among MPs thrown in.
The clash has centred on the governing Georgian Dream Party’s “Foreign Agent” law, which opponents fear will be a tool to suppress political opponents. But the divisions being exposed in Georgia are far more fundamental and go much beyond than that. At the beating heart of it all is the influence of Russia, Vladimir Putin and a question which haunts many of the Soviet successor states- are we the next Ukraine?
Lewis reports from Georgia in this special extended episode, where he tells a tale of geopolitical intrigue, of misinformation and conspiracy, and of a generation yearning for a different future.
Field Producer: Gabriel Radus
Video Producer: Rory Symon
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The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.0 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:13.5 | We are standing in just by Freedom Square, which is all the main plazas of Tbilisi, |
| 0:24.6 | in the middle of a massive boulevard, |
| 0:27.3 | and next to the Parliament of the Republic of Georgia. |
| 0:31.6 | And we are surrounded in every single direction by people, predominantly young people. I'm talking young, young, |
| 0:42.2 | Gen Z, Gen Z, as I suppose you might insist on calling them. 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds, 20-year-old students, |
| 0:48.9 | kids, and they are all flying aloft, three flags. The flag of Ukraine, the flag of the EU, and the flag of Georgia, often on a single pole. |
| 1:02.0 | These are people who feel that their republic, that their democracy is under threat from that old enemy, the Russian bear. |
| 1:11.6 | Today's show is about what is happening in Georgia. |
| 1:14.6 | Why it is that thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people |
| 1:19.6 | are turning out night after night, week after week, to fight they believe for their democracy. |
| 1:25.6 | It's a show about what's at stake, |
| 1:28.2 | not just in this small, rocky country in the Caucasus, |
| 1:32.6 | sandwiched between two continents, |
| 1:34.6 | but across the whole of Eastern Europe |
| 1:36.7 | and the post-Soviet successor states. |
| 1:39.8 | It's Lewis here. |
| 1:40.7 | Welcome to the Newsagents. |
| 1:45.0 | The Newsagents. The Newsagents. |
| 1:48.0 | Glory to Georgia, fuck Russia. |
| 2:03.6 | We don't want, of course, we don't want to live in Russia and we don't want Russian law. |
... |
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