Tbilisi accused Kyiv of trying to shift Russia’s attention to Georgia

Georgian Prime Minister Garibashvili accused Kyiv of trying to divert Russia to his country

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili told reporters that he did not understand why the Kyiv authorities are paying increased attention to domestic political events in his country. The prime minister also considers unreasonable the decision to send the Georgian ambassador from Kyiv to Tbilisi for consultations in connection with the demand for the transfer of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to Ukraine for treatment.

Garibashvili noted that in 2022, “more than twenty million Ukrainians … left their homes, 20% of territories were lost, and Ukraine suffered damage estimated at more than a trillion dollars.” In this regard, he does not understand “why, in this situation, the Ukrainian leadership has time to concentrate” on internal political issues of Georgia.

Garibashvili also appreciated the appeal of the Verkhovna Rada to the leadership of Georgia on the direction of Saakashvili for treatment in Ukraine. According to him, “they want to see a government in Georgia that will pursue their interests in order to divert Russia’s attention to another direction and to another front.” At the same time, he stressed: “But we will not allow this.”

The prime minister also said that the Georgian leadership received an appeal to send Saakashvili for treatment to one of the EU countries from a group of European parliamentarians. Garibashvili urged them to apologize to the people of Georgia and the authorities for spreading “a lie that the Georgian authorities allegedly poisoned Saakashvili.”

He noted that in a conversation with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, he gave him arguments regarding data on the involvement of Ukrainian officials in Mikheil Saakashvili’s secret crossing of the Georgian border, but did not wait for Kiev’s reaction.

Saakashvili secretly arrived in Georgia at the end of September 2021 and was detained in Tbilisi two days later. He was placed in a prison in Rustavi, where he went on a hunger strike. On November 8, Saakashvili, without the consent of his relatives and lawyers, was transferred to a prison hospital in Tbilisi, and on November 20, to a military hospital in Gori. Since May 12, 2022, he has been undergoing treatment at the Vivamed clinic.

Saakashvili is accused in several criminal cases. He called his detention illegal, and the charges against him – falsified.