The Daily Beat: 11 August
On Saturday, freestyle wrestler, Geno Petriashvili and weightlifter, Lasha Talakhadze won two more gold medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Geno Petriashvili, 30, won his first gold medal in the men’s 125kg freestyle wrestling event, while Lasha Talakhadze 30, defended his third gold medal in men’s +102kg weightlifting. Talakhadze took the win lifting 215kg in the snatch and 255kg in the clean & jerk for a total of 470kg. In total, at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Georgian athletes won 3 gold, 3 silver, and 1 bronze medals.
On August 9, President Salome Zurabishvili shared on social media a letter from U.S. President Joe Biden commemorating the 16th anniversary of the August 2008 war and expressing the United States’ “steadfast” support for Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. President Biden also underscored his disappointment with the Georgian government’s anti-democratic actions and anti-Western messages in the letter.
An international journalistic investigation has revealed large real estate holdings of apartments and lands in Moscow owned by family members of the billionaire patron and founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party Bidzina Ivanishvili. Although Ivanishvili promised in 2011, when he founded Georgian Dream, that he would sell his Russian companies and revoke his Russian passport, the investigation says otherwise.
Military volunteers from the occupied Georgian regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali have been sent to Russia’s Kursk region to fight on the Russian side against Ukrainian forces, RFE/RL’s Russian-language service, Ekho Kavkaza, reported, citing telegram channels. “The Supreme Commander-in-Chief has called for support for the Kursk region. We did not need to be called for long. We came to help,” reads the message from the telegram channel from the “Wild Division of Donbas,” whose commander is the Abkhaz fighter Akhra Avidzba.
On August 9-11, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH 10th District) visited Georgia, where they met with President Salome Zurabishvili, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, Defense Minister Irakli Chikovani, and representatives of CSOs and political parties. At a press conference, U.S. legislators expressed disappointment that Prime Minister Kobakhidze had no suggestions to improve the relationship with the United States. Senator Shaheen also revealed that they were denied a meeting with Bidzina Ivanishvili.
On August 9, Shekvetili Dendrological Park issued a statement, saying that all 8 baobab trees transferred from Kenya and planted into Georgian soil withered, accusing the opposition United National Movement party and related NGOs of a smear campaign against Bidzina Ivanishvili that led to unnecessary delays in the replanting process, finally leading to the withering of these unique plants. The senior ruling Georgian Dream party representatives voiced the same allegations. “Unfortunately, some people are more worried about the withering of baobabs than about the country,” President Zurabishvili reacted to “Baobabs’ Scandal.”
