TBILISI -- A Kremlin-sponsored media forum is under way in Tbilisi amid protests.
Dozens of activists from a civic group called Russia Is An Occupier rallied on September 5 in front of the Vere Palace Hotel in Tbilisi, where the forum organized by the Presidential Grant Foundation -- a Moscow-based organization that handles grants approved by President Vladimir Putin with the stated aim of the development of civil society -- was taking place
Protesters chanted "Russia is an occupier!" and "Russia kills!" The protesters also organized a performance accusing Georgian authorities of "welcoming people who promote Putin's polices."
Police stood by at the site.
On September 4, Georgian authorities barred three Russian journalists who intended to take part in the media forum from entering the country.
Viktor Litovkin, Gennady Bordyugov, and Aleksandr Tokarev later said that they were not allowed to enter Georgia because they have visited breakaway, Russian-backed regions in the past.
Relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have remained tense in the years since the two countries fought a five-day war in August 2008 over Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia shed the control of the central government in Tbilisi in separatist wars in the early 1990s.
Russia stepped up its military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia after recognizing them as independent states following the 2008 war.
The vast majority of world countries rejects the regions' independence claims and considers them part of Georgia.
Kremlin-Sponsored Media Forum Held In Tbilisi Amid Protests

Editors' Picks
Top Trending
1
Interview: For Putin, The War In Ukraine Is Hard To Win And Even Harder To End
2Amid Worries Over Russian Forces In Belarus, Former Security Officer Says Belarusian Conscripts Won't Fight
3Punished By Western Sanctions, Russia's Airlines Are Showing More Cracks And More Problems
4Romance And Realism: The Former Banker Photographing Rural Romania
5Russia Shifting War Focus To 'NATO And The West,' Says EU Official
6Interview: Writer Vladimir Sorokin Says Russia's Unresolved Historical Traumas Have Now 'Taken The Form Of War'
7Denounced By Her Classmates, Anti-War Russian Teen Faces A Long Prison Term
8'Not Everyone Supports This Crazy War': Life In Russia's Embattled Belgorod Region
9Biden To Speak With Zelenskiy As Ukraine's Calls For Fighter Jets Grow Louder
10Poland Recruits Record Number Of Soldiers Following Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine
Subscribe