It’s time for the bureaucrats in Brussels and the Soros-network to stop attacking the government in Georgia. I expressed my support to Chairman @shpapuashvili in their fight for Georgia’s sovereignty, Orban posted on Musk’s X. His twit soon received reply from Republican Congressman Joe Wilson: “Sadly, Prime Minister Orbán is misguided here. CCP & Iranian regime crony Bidzina Ivanishvili is actually intimately acquainted with Soros”, Congressman was pointing at the business relations of Soros with Orban’s current ally , billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Sadly, Prime Minister Orbán is misguided here. CCP & Iranian regime crony Bidzina Ivanishvili is actually intimately acquainted with Soros. https://t.co/NSKBw51m34 pic.twitter.com/Ls6iVtalej
— Joe Wilson (@RepJoeWilson) January 27, 2025
On December 27, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Ivanishvili, the founder and honorary chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party, under the Russian Harmful Foreign Activities Sanctions – E.O. 14024.
“The U.S. is sanctioning Bidzina Grigoris Dze Ivanishvili, the founder and honorary chairman of Georgian Dream. His actions have enabled human rights abuses and undermined the democratic and European future of the Georgian people for the benefit of the Russian Federation,” wrote the U.S. State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller on X (formerly Twitter).
The statement made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken reads: “Ivanishvili and Georgian Dream’s actions have eroded democratic institutions, enabled human rights abuses, and curbed the exercise of fundamental freedoms in Georgia. Furthermore, they have derailed Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic future, a future the Georgian people overwhelmingly desire and the Georgian constitution mandates.
Ivanishvili was mostly welcomed by the West till now. He has a French and Georgia passports but has distanced himself from the West.
“Ivanishvili has held Georgia hostage to his personal financial problems ever since he became convinced that Credit Suisse was part of a grand conspiracy against him,” said Tina Khidasheli, former ally and Minister of Defence.
Ivanishvili first sued Credit Suisse in 2011 after uncovering fraudulent schemes involving one of the bank’s managers. A new phase in the dispute began following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when reports emerged that the bank had frozen Ivanishvili’s account containing £2.7 billion, citing suspicions that the funds might have Russian origins.
George Soros, met Georgia’s PM Bidzina Ivanishvili in latter’s residence during his visit in 2012, the year when the oligarch used his vast resources to unite the opposition and defeat United National Movement government favoured by the west till Russia’s invasion of Georgia.
The two billionaires met in Ivanishvili’s hilltop “business center” in Tbilisi. This was George’s second visit to Georgia. First visit was in 2005, year after the Rose Revolution which was mostly financed by Soros and Ivanishvili.
On the same day of Soros’ meeting with Ivanishvili, OSGF refused to assist Saakashvili to revive his influence. “George Soros and Open Society Georgia Foundation do not fund political parties and their activities in Georgia,” OSGF stated.
While talking about his contribution to the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, Soros said that Georgia was proving itself “a viable and successful regime.”
“My role has been misunderstood and greatly exaggerated, actually by President Putin and others [including former Georgian President Eduard] Shevardnadze, who prefer to blame me for organizing the [Rose] Revolution, rather than accepting the fact that the people overturned the regime in Georgia,” Soros said.
Soros has publicly committed himself to funding the “democratic” presidency of Mikhail Saakashvili, just as he has publicly committed himself and his money to the destruction of the presidency of George W. Bush, whom he has compared to Yasser Arafat and Hitler., wrote Richard W. Carlson, a former director of the Voice of America in 2005. “A former member of the Georgian Parliament said that in the three months before the “Rose Revolution,” “from August through October, Soros spent $42 million ramping-up for the overthrow of Shevardnadze.”
Also it was widely reported by Georgian media that Soros was paying salaries to government officials and judges till 2006, Ivanishvili said it was him who made a deal with Soros and provided funds for state Clarks.
French President Emmanuel Macron awarded former Georgian PM and the founder and the current head of the ruling Georgian Dream party Bidzina Ivanishvili with the Order of the Legion of Honor, a top French civil award.
“Ivanishvili supported Saakashvili and his team who, having come into power after the 2013 Rose Revolution, gave political priority to fighting corruption and ensuring the country’s democratic modernization and Euro-Atlantic integration. He provided unprecedented financial assistance to state agencies. With a view to strengthening anti-corruption activities and attracting professionals into public service, for two years he financed funds to pay salaries to ministers, senior government officials, judges, and other public servants, as the state at that time could afford to pay only symbolic salaries”, David Usupashvili, FOrmer ally of Ivanishvili and Chairman of the Parliament said in his open letter.
After meeting PM Bidzina Ivanishvili in 2012, Soros met President Saakashvili. This was the last meeting they had in Georgia. Soros concedes he has made mistakes. Saakashvili, the former Georgian President he championed, “turned out to be much less of a paragon of open society values than he was in opposition”, he wrote in 2011. He repeated this during the visit to Georgia in 2014 as well.
Soros’s reputation in Hungary took a particular hit during the 2015 migrant crisis, when his advocacy for the humane treatment for refugees ran up against Hungary’s ultra-conservative government, led by Orbán, a rightwing nationalist.
In 1989 the American-Hungarian financier George Soros paid for Viktor Orbán to study in Britain. Two decades later, he donated $1m to Orbán’s government to help the cleanup after the “red sludge” environmental disaster.
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