Irakli Kobakhidze confirmed reports that Georgia’s ambassador to the US, David Zalkaliani, had become the latest senior diplomat to stand down, stressing that he had come under considerable pressure.

Protests continued on Sunday for a fourth night running, as Georgians vented their anger at the ruling party’s decision to suspend talks on joining the European Union.

Kobakhidze sought to deny the reason for the protests, saying on Sunday that “we have not suspended anything, it’s a lie”.

Only three days before, his party Georgian Dream had accused the EU of using talks on joining the union as “blackmail” and said the government had decided not to put the issue on the agenda until the end of 2028.

It is part of Georgia’s constitution to ensure that “all measures” are taken to bring the country into both the EU and Nato.

However, Georgia’s increasingly authoritarian government has been accused by the EU and US of democratic backsliding. On Saturday, the US said it was suspending its strategic partnership with Georgia.

Kobakhidze said, at a news conference that Georgian Dream was still “committed to European integration… and we are continuing on our path to the European dream”.

And yet an increasing array of public officials do not appear to believe that is the case. Several ambassadors have resigned, and hundreds of civil servants and 2,800 teachers have signed letters condemning the decision to put EU accession on hold.

Many Georgians have been shocked by the level of violence directed at Georgian journalists as well as protesters. Dozens of reporters have been beaten or pepper sprayed and some have needed hospital treatment.

Georgia’s human rights ombudsman Levan Ioseliani said “this is brutality”, and he appealed to police not to abuse their power.

On Sunday, the prime minister said it was opposition groups and not the police that had meted out “systemic violence”.

Georgian ex-ambassador to the EU Natalie Sabanadze, now at Chatham House in the UK, believes the level of violence, the string of resignations and civil disobedience indicate a “qualitative change” to the protests now taking place.

“Maybe [the government] thought people would be scared, but it’s not working out like this,” she said.

“Yesterday civil society activists and artists went to the public broadcaster and took it over and forced their way into the live stream. I’ve seen this before, in pre-revolutionary Georgia [in 2003].”

Georgia’s pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, is due to step down in a matter of weeks, however since last month’s contested parliamentary elections which opposition parties have denounced as rigged, she has become a powerful figurehead, rallying protesters against the government and calling for a new vote.

She and the protesters accuse the government of aiming to drag their country back into Russia’s sphere of influence, even though an overwhelming majority of the population backs joining the EU.

Georgia has a population of some 3.7 million and 20% of its territory is under Russian military occupation in two breakaway regions.

After a third night of protests in Tbilisi and other Georgian cities such as Batumi, Zugdidi and Kutaisi, smaller groups occupied a traffic intersection during the day on Sunday in front of Tbilisi State University.

“I’m here for my country’s future and the future of my three-year-old son,” said one protester called Salome, aged 29. “I don’t want him to spend his life at protests and I don’t want a Russian government.”

While Georgian Dream flatly denies any links to the Kremlin, it has in the past year adopted Russian-style laws that target civil society groups with funding from abroad as well as LGBT rights.

Half an hour’s walk away from the daylight protest, a small army of cleaners were trying to scrub off graffiti from a wall in front of the Georgian parliament.

Some of the windows of the building were smashed overnight, and an effigy was set alight of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire seen as the driving force behind Georgian Dream’s 12 years in power.

The question now is what will happen next in Georgia’s deepening political and constitutional crisis.

The Georgian Dream government’s relations with its Western partners are very badly damaged.

The EU’s new foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, warned on Sunday that the government’s actions would “have direct consequences from EU side”, and the US decision to suspend its strategic partnership will also be widely felt.

The Georgian prime minister had little time for the president or her call for new elections.

“Mrs Salome Zourabichvili has four Fridays left [as president] and she can’t get used to it. I understand her emotional state, but of course on 29 December she’ll have to leave.”

Thousands of Georgians protested on Saturday for a third straight night after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced the government will suspend talks on EU accession.

The goal to join the 27-member is now enshrined in Georgia’s constitution, but the prime minister – who has been building closer ties with Russia – suspended the talks for four years and accused Brussels of “blackmail”.

In an address on Saturday, Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of the Georgian Dream governing party, said parliament had no right to elect her successor when her term ends in December, and that she would stay in post.

The president, whose powers are largely ceremonial, maintains that the country’s October 26 election, which was won by Georgian Dream with 54 percent of the vote, was fraudulent and therefore renders the elected parliament illegitimate.

“There is no legitimate parliament, and therefore, an illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president. Thus, no inauguration can take place, and my mandate continues until a legitimately elected parliament is formed,” she said.

Georgia election commission earlier this month confirmed the governing party as the winner, but watchdogs and politicians in the EU and the United States have also suggested an investigation needs to look into potential fraud.

The country’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday it had arrested 107 people in the capital, Tblisi, overnight during protests which saw some demonstrators build barricades and throw fireworks at riot police, who used water cannon and tear gas.

The unrest came as Kobakhidze, the prime minister, accused opponents of the government’s move to halt EU accession talks of plotting a revolution, similar to Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan protest, which deposed a pro-Russian president.

“In Georgia, the Maidan scenario cannot be realised. Georgia is a state, and the state will not, of course, permit this,” Kobakhidze was quoted as saying by local media.

The US State Department said on Saturday it had suspended its strategic partnership with Georgia following the decision by the Georgian Dream party to suspend accession to the EU.

“We condemn excessive force used against Georgians rightfully protesting this betrayal of their constitution – EU is a bulwark against Kremlin,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller wrote on X.

“We have therefore suspended our Strategic Partnership with Georgia.”

Georgia gained independence from neighbouring Russia in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the two countries have not had any diplomatic relations since a brief 2008 war over Moscow-backed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

But the Georgian Dream party’s efforts to build closer relations with Russia had already stalled the country’s application to join the EU.

The bloc has said laws against “foreign agents” and LGBTQ rights are among the main reasons behind the stall, as they curtail human rights and are modelled after legislation in Russia.