Last year, Washington demonstrated that political prisoners are a convertible currency. After visits and calls from President Donald Trump’s envoys, Alexander Lukashenko released dozens of them in two batches — and sanctions on Belavia, the Belarusian state airline, came off in return. Whatever the merits of that trade, its lesson traveled. In Tbilisi, the man who owns Georgia was watching.Bidzina Ivanishvili — the billionaire founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, designated by the U.S. Treasury in December 2024 for undermining Georgia’s democratic and Euro-Atlantic future for the benefit of Russia — has spent two years assembling the same asset class.Nearly every leader of Georgia’s pro-Western opposition went to prison in 2025, most for the novel crime of refusing to appear before a parliamentary commission — among them Nika Melia, former chairman of the largest opposition party; Nika Gvaramia, a media chief turned party leader; Giorgi Vashadze; and Zurab Japaridze. The cells also hold student protesters, a famous actor, an opera singer who sang at demonstrations, and the country’s most celebrated poet. Freedom House stated the American position plainly in June: for Georgia, there should be “no reset without releases.”