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Georgia had to endure pressures to get in conflict with Russia - Speaker

Shalva Papuashvili President of the Georgian Parliament

24 February 2025 17:32 (UTC +04:00)

“Since the first days of the Ukraine war, Georgia had “to endure the domestic and international pressures to get in conflict with Russia in one or other form,” the Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili wrote on social media, APA reports citing Georgian Public Broadcaster.

“The national interest remains, as it should be, the guiding principle of the Georgian government. It includes safeguarding of our independence and sovereignty, unification of the country, and sustaining our people’s welfare, and serves as the cornerstone of our foreign policy. This understanding of the national interest was key to every decision since before and after the war started in Ukraine, exactly three years ago.

After the war started, Georgian government offered full solidarity to the Ukrainian people.

Despite pressure, however, we did not impose bilateral sanctions on Russia, or restrict the land or air movement because such escalation would not have been even noticeable for Russia but would have caused economic collapse for Georgia and triggered a new war, in absence of any international security support or economic safeguards for Georgia.

Despite our active solidarity with Ukraine, the reciprocal actions by the Zelenskyy Administration were incomprehensible. Only a week after the start of the war, Ukrainian government recalled its ambassador from Georgia, and Zelenskyy himself addressed the protesting crowd in front of Georgian Parliament, tweeting that the people of Georgia were ‘better than the government’, thus clearly encouraging the protest against the authorities in Tbilisi. Ukrainian officials, including the President’s national security adviser, openly called on Georgians to overtake Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region by force. The radical opposition and their affiliated NGOs declared ‘the bombs were better than the shame they had to endure’, because of the Georgian government’s policies.

The reaction from some Western capitals was not any better either. Despite the decade-long policy of ‘strategic patience’, which the Western countries had strongly suggested to Georgia, suddenly, our government was pushed to adopt an aggressive stance towards Russia, despite the lethal danger of the repeat aggression. This was happening without even a hint of either security guarantees or, at least, economic solidarity in case of escalation,” he wrote.

“In summer 2022, Georgia was refused the EU candidate country status, despite the fact that we were always forerunners in the Eastern Partnership format, by all EU indicators, and still remain such in many aspects among all EU candidate nations. This decision triggered protests by the radical opposition parties and the foreign-funded NGOs.

Despite this permanent pressure, both from the domestic radicals as well as their foreign patrons, Georgian government steered the country around the landmines. We now know that the only landmark that helped us to direct our country in the right direction was our belief in our people’s wisdom and our commitment to the national interest," - he said.