He is the puppet master of Georgian politics – a man of fabulous wealth and extraordinary power. 

And Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili is the focus of intense opposition as unrest sweeping his country reaches boiling point.

From humble origins, he left Georgia to accumulate immense wealth in Russia through close ties with Putin’s chosen few, the kleptocratic elites who have helped themselves to the country’s riches in return for complete loyalty to the Kremlin.

He is said to be worth at least $5bn (£3.98bn), a third of his country’s GDP.

After returning to Georgia, he acquired enormous influence in his homeland.

He says he has withdrawn from frontline politics but, as chairman of the Georgian Dream party, Ivanishvili is the power behind the throne, an eminence grise, say his critics, operating from the shadows as the puppet master of the country’s power struggles.

He chooses the country’s prime ministers. Three of the last four have been former managers of his companies.

Georgia’s interior minister is a former bodyguard of Ivanishvili, its former health minister was his wife’s dentist, an education minister one of his children’s maths tutors. The list goes on.

To many, Ivanishvili’s lifestyle might sound more James Bond villain than tycoon.

In the hills overlooking the capital Tbilisi, he has a futuristic mansion said to have a shark-infested pool.

He collects other exotic animals, including kangaroos and lemurs, and has a penchant for exotic trees – uprooting rare 135-year-old specimens with huge controversy and hauling them off to his tree park.

But it’s his alleged ties with Russia that are the most controversial and murky.

Many Georgians say they are sceptical of his claims to have sold his businesses and ended his investments in Russia years ago.

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Ivanishvili and his Georgian Dream party are trying to push through parliament a new law that has caused the biggest unrest in Georgia in years.

The ‘foreign agent’ bill, as it’s known, would give the government more control over the media and human rights organisations. It is modelled on laws Putin has used to tighten his own authoritarian grip on Russia.

Tens of thousands of Georgians have demonstrated against the bill.

With its final reading due this week, the unrest is heading for a crunch point.

Protesters are determined to thwart the man they see as Putin’s puppet. They believe if he prevails he will end their dream of closer ties with Europe and eventual membership of the European Union.

At stake is both Georgia’s national identity and Vladimir Putin’s ability to maintain control and influence in this former Soviet republic.

Police in Amsterdam have moved in to end a pro-Palestinian protest after demonstrators occupied university buildings.

Footage from the Dutch capital showed a line of police in riot gear holding back demonstrators, some of whom could be seen making peace signs with their hands while others held signs.

Students could be heard chanting: “We are peaceful, what are you?” and “shame on you” in local media footage.

Earlier, a protest group said it had occupied university buildings in Amsterdam as well as in the cities of Groningen and Eindhoven.

In a post on social media site X, Amsterdam police said the university had filed a report against the protesters for acts of vandalism.

A spokesperson for the University of Amsterdam said protesters had occupied what is known as the ABC building, causing some “destruction”.

It estimated that around a thousand students and employees had taken part in a “national walkout” during which they walked out of a lecture hall at 11 o’clock and gathered on the Roeterseiland campus.

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The university said it had advised people not affiliated with the protest to leave the building.

Students in the US and Europe have been holding mostly peaceful demonstrations calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire in Gaza and for schools to cut financial ties with companies they say are profiting from the oppression of Palestinians.

Dutch students have been protesting since last Monday and had previously clashed with police as they used railings and furniture to build barricades in the city.

While in the UK, students at Cambridge and Oxford have set up encampments outside King’s College the Pitt Rivers Museum respectively.

Kendall Gardner, a Jewish student at Oxford University, told Sky News last week that she was “really inspired by the events that have been happening across the world”.

“The US started a global chain of student activism for Palestine,” she said.

“We have six demands for this protest – the top line is to demand closure of all university-wide financial assets that benefit Israel.

Tens of thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets in Tbilisi – protesting against a proposed law threatening press and civic freedoms.

The “foreign agents” bill has sparked a political crisis amid concerns it is modelled on laws used by Vladimir Putin to crack down on the media in Russia – and if passed, would make it harder for Georgia to join the EU.

Sky’s international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn is in Tbilisi:

The Georgian security forces moved in shortly after dawn this morning. Phalanxes of masked men sweeping through streets and parks outside parliament.

They kettled protesters with force. We were caught in the crush as they squeezed the crowd.

A woman screamed as she was pinned to a post by the press of people.

Crowds had ringed the parliament building all night – intent on stopping MPs from voting on laws that demonstrators believe put Georgia on the path to dictatorship, and back in the embrace of Moscow.

“They want to drag us back to autocracy, to the country they occupied us for too many years,” one protester told Sky News.

The police succeeded in clearing one entrance to parliament.

Flank after flank of interior ministry security forces backed by helmeted riot police and water cannon trucks are now in a tense standoff with a multi-coloured sea of protesters on the corner of the parliament building.

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The blue and green colours of Ukraine and the European Union jostle with the reds and white of Georgia’s national colours.

The protesters have been peaceful, but the police have not. They have unleashed snatch squads barrelling into the crowd.

Sky News witnessed masked security forces seizing one man and raining blows on his unprotected head.

The protesters have failed in their effort to cut off parliament from MPs, but their numbers are swelling.

“We will not give up,” one woman told us.

“We cannot allow them to take our freedom.”

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The government was forced to shelve the law last year in the face of bitter opposition but the Georgian Dream ruling party, regarded by many as pro-Russian, is determined to see it passed.