Several Injured in Tbilisi as Clashes Break Out Between Anti-Russian Protesters and Police

Protesters clashed with riot police outside the parliament in Tbilisi, Georgia, on June 20 and into June 21 as angry scenes greeted the presence of a Russian delegation, led by MP Sergei Gavrilov, at an Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy.

Locals took issue with Gavrilov occupying the speaker’s chair in the parliament, RFE said, an action symbolic of Russia’s influence over its smaller neighbor.

Georgians, RFE said, view Gavrilov as an ally of President Vladimir Putin and a supporter of separatists in the southern Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Credit: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty via Storyful