Lipstick protester vows to keep fighting Russian influence despite intimidation and violence

Image that has gone viral of Ana Minadze fixing her lipstick - GIOGI DUMBADZE

As she applies her lipstick in the reflection of the riot policeman’s shield, Ana Minadze has only one thing on her mind: defiance.

“I was not afraid because if they see fear they will never stop,” she told The Telegraph in a coffee shop in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

“It worked as a mirror,” she said, explaining that she had been inspired by a 2015 photo of a woman demonstrator in Macedonia. “Maybe the policeman was smiling. I couldn’t see his face but I could see his eyes.”

Ms Minadze is just one of tens of thousands of Georgians who have been protesting almost daily for six weeks against a Russian-inspired “foreign agents” law, which was finally passed by parliament on Tuesday.

The Bill will undermine Western-backed non-government organisations (NGOs) by forcing them to register with a government unit. It has been interpreted as an attempt to destroy Georgia’s Europe-leaning civil society. The government says it is needed to improve transparency.

Ever since a friend snapped Ms Minadze touching up her make-up in front of riot police at a demonstration on April 16, the 20-year-old political science student has become Georgia’s “lipstick protester” – the face of a wider brewing confrontation between the West and Russia.

Ms Minadze and other protesters see the daily evening protests outside Georgia’s parliament as part of a new ideological front line.

They feel a duty to stand up to the ruling Georgian Dream party, which is unofficially run by a shady billionaire linked to the Kremlin.

“The government wants Georgia to be part of Russia,” said Ms Minadze. “But we are a new generation born in independent Georgia and we will fight for the future of Georgia.”

Sandwiched between Turkey, Russia and the Black Sea, the Caucasus country has been held up as a poster boy for Western democracy in the former Soviet Union.

Economy is booming

The drive into Tbilisi from the airport winds down George W Bush Street, named in honour of the former US president’s visit in 2005.

The country fought a bloody war against Russia in 2008 over Putin’s support for two rebel regions. In December, the EU granted Georgia candidate status for membership of the bloc, which polls show more than 80 per cent of the population support. The economy is booming and tourists are queuing up to explore it.

But the Georgian government has quietly increased its ties with Russia since it invaded Ukraine in 2022 by strengthening economic, educational and travel links.

Analysts – and many Georgians – put this unwanted shift down to one man: Bidzina Ivanishvili, who controls and funds the governing Georgian Dream party despite holding no elected political position.

An eccentric recluse, he made an estimated £4 billion – roughly the equivalent of a fifth of Georgia’s annual GDP – while working in finance in Russia during the 1990s and has retained links with the Kremlin ever since.

Mr Ivanishvili entered Georgia’s political scene in 2012 to unseat a staunchly pro-Western government, led by the now imprisoned Mikheil Saakashvili. Mr Ivanishvili served as prime minister until 2013 and then stepped down.

Analysts said that he could once again be consulting the Kremlin but that his agenda is likely mainly driven by anti-West paranoia.

In a speech in April that could have been written by the Kremlin, Mr Ivanishvili described a peaceful 2003 revolution in Georgia as a foreign-backed plot.

“He is a Macbeth of the Caucasus who is trapped in his own projections, trapped in a maze of his own making,” said Hans Gutbrod, professor of Public Policy at Ilia State University in Tbilisi.

Ana talking to The Telegraph in an interview in a Tbilisi coffee shop - JAMES KILNER FOR THE TELEGRAPH

Prof Gutbrod said that the war in Ukraine has exacerbated these paranoias and was pushing Georgia into a crisis.

“But it’s not just a problem taking place in Georgia. If Russia prevails in Ukraine, this will come to you, to Europe,” he said. “This is part of a pushback against open society, part of authoritarian leaders cementing their control.”

Street politics has always been a feature in Georgia but the country is now becoming much more polarised. MPs have brawled in parliament, pleas by the EU and the US for compromise have been ignored and there is growing fear of a civil war.

At the protests, riot police fire tear gas and charge protesters while squads of thickset men wearing balaclavas target individuals and drag them away. Demonstrators often emerge hours later badly beaten.

People are not safe even when they are not protesting.

Last week, gangs of hooded thugs ambushed several opposition activists outside their homes, kicking and punching them repeatedly and then leaving them bloodied lying on the floor.

Posters were also plastered on to the offices of NGOs that oppose the “foreign agents” law, describing staff as traitors.

Activists, journalists, lawyers and academics who have spoken out now look warily over their shoulders and carry cans of pepper spray.

Some, like gay rights activist Giorgi Tabagari, have gone into hiding. He left Tbilisi after his car was vandalised and posters agitating against him were plastered onto his 77-year-old father’s house.

“These methods are designed to terrorise people,” he said. “It is extremely unsafe for me at the moment to hang out in Tbilisi.”

Compromise feels distant

The Georgian government did not respond to a request for an interview.

On Friday, thousands of people joined an annual rally organised by the powerful Georgian Orthodox Church in Tbilisi to defend “family values” against LGBT rights. There, people said that although they also supported joining the EU, they were wary of its “corrupting” influence and backed Georgian Dream.

They described the protesters as spoiled Tbilisi youth who had goaded police into a crackdown.

“We have seen how French police treat demonstrators and it is much worse,” said Elene, a 29-year-old accountant.

Compromise feels distant. Georgia’s pro-West French-born president Salome Zurabishvili is expected to veto the “foreign agents” law within a fortnight – but MPs can ignore her and force it into law anyway.

In the coffee shop, Ms Minadze shrugged. She is preparing for more protests, and police violence.

“Of course, there is some fear because we know now that they can do anything against us,” she said.

She opened her handbag and emptied out the contents: a basic first aid pack, cotton pads, Vaseline and a saline spray for dousing tear gas from eyes.

“I usually carry at least one gas mask too,” she said. “It’s no longer just lipstick.”

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