Anti-Kremlin Russian blogger says he was denied entry to Georgia

Russian blogger and journalist  Aleksei Romanov said on Tuesday that he was denied entry to Georgia, expressing suspicion that the refusal could be connected with his coverage of pro-Mikheil Saakashvili’s rallies in Georgia.

“After making me wait for six hours, the Georgian Interior Ministry decided not allow me into the country,” said the blogger, whose Youtube channel has more than 350,000 subscribers.

Romanov said that the document which the ministry handed him to define the grounds for the refusal, read that he “did not meet other requirements defined by the legislation of Georgia.”

The blogger said that he believed that the reason behind the move was his presence at the rallies demanding the release of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who was arrested in Tbilisi in October 2021 after eight years in political exile, and covering the protests.

Romanov lived and worked in the Russian city of Khabarovsk until 2016.

He  fled Russia with his family back in 2016, saying that he feared for his safety amid a campaign of harassment by the local authorities.

However, he returned to Khabarovsk in 2020 to cover protests in support of the governor Sergei Furgal, who was arrested by the authorities.

Romanov was arrested while covering the demonstrations. He spent one week in the pre-trial detention center.