'Friends and foes' want Georgia to send troops to Ukraine - official

RT
Tue, 28 May 2024 21:28 UTC

© AFP / Vano Shlamov

FILE PHOTO. Georgian servicemen attend the celebrations of Georgia's Independence Day in Tbilisi.

Tbilisi has been consistently pushed into war with Russia, the speaker of the country's parliament has claimed

Georgia has been repeatedly pushed into a conflict with Russia, the President of the Georgian Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, has claimed.

According to the senior MP, "certain friends and foes" have repeatedly bombarded Tbilisi with demands to impose sanctions on Moscow and deploy troops to Ukraine.

Top Ukrainian officials, including the former head of the National Security Council Alexey Danilov, have urged Georgia to open a "second front" against Russia, calls consistently rejected by Tbilisi.

"Certain friends and foes have been pushing us into this, so that we would send fighters to Ukraine, which would have directly meant war with Russia," Papuashvili explained.

He implied that members of the US-led NATO bloc were among those calling for Georgia to get involved in the conflict, noting that they were abstaining from sending in their own militaries. Apart from demands to enter the conflict directly, Georgia has long faced pressure to join Western sanctions against Moscow, he also noted.

Papuashvili further claimed that "non-governmental organizations that held rallies in Tbilisi... have also demanded our troops be sent to Ukraine."

The speaker's jab at NGOs comes amid ongoing domestic unrest and foreign pressure over draft "foreign agents" legislation, requiring those organizations and individuals receiving over 20% of their funding from abroad to register and disclose their sources of income.

The controversial bill was shelved amid mass protests and foreign pressure last year, with a new attempt to pass a slightly modified version running into the same troubles. However, the Georgian government has stood its ground and vowed to adopt the bill.

While Tbilisi has maintained an explicitly neutral stance on the Ukrainian conflict, a sizeable number of mercenaries originating from the country have fought on Kiev's behalf. According to Russian military estimates, Georgia has provided some 1,042 mercenaries, only smaller than Kiev's top backers, the US and Poland, with 1,113 and 2,960 fighters respectively.

At least 561 Georgian nationals were killed during the hostilities while serving with the Ukrainian military, according to Moscow's estimates.

Comment:
1) For more context check out, this clip from NewsReal with Joe & Niall, part of SOTT Focus: NewsReal: Georgia Dream - Empire of Lies to Open Second Front Against Russia?

2) On the topic of Georgia, there was also:

3) In Ukraine there is a unit with and estimated 500 Georgians and another 500 from other countries:

The Georgian National Legion or Georgian Legion (Ukrainian: Грузинський національний легіон, romanized: Hruzynskyi natsionalnyi lehion; Georgian: ქართული ლეგიონი, romanized: kartuli legioni) is a military unit formed by mostly ethnic Georgian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine in the war in Donbas and the Russo-Ukrainian War.^[4] The unit was organized in 2014,^[5] and in 2016 it was made part of the Ukrainian Army, under the 25th Mechanized Infantry Battalion "Kyiv Rus".^[6]

Accusation of coup plot[edit]
On 18 September 2023, the State Security Service of Georgia (SSG) accused the Georgian Legion and Mamulashvili of plotting with Ukrainian intelligence to stage a coup d'état against the ruling Georgian Dream to restore arrested President Mikheil Saakashvili. Mamulashvili retorted that the claims of a coup were baseless and accused the Georgian Dream party of "receiving tasks from the Kremlin".^[34]

Activities
The Legion conducts sabotage, ambush and reconnaissance activities behind enemy lines and participated in a number of major battles.^[42] They also instruct and train Ukrainian civilians,^[2] police officers,^[43] soldiers^[43] and foreign volunteers.

The activities the Georgian Legion specialize in are handy for a second front or another civil war.

4) See also other articles on SOTT related to Georgian and Georgia:
Georgian

• Georgian PM accuses EU of 'blackmailing' him with assassination threat
• EU official explains Georgian PM death threat warning
• Georgian parliamentary committee approves 'foreign influence' bill
• Georgian police disperse 'foreign agents' bill protests
• The 2008 Georgian conflict was the US' template for the 2022 Ukrainian one
• US lawmakers welcomed notorious Georgian warlord now boasting of war crimes in Ukraine
• US neurologist tells Georgian court jailed politician Saakashvili is 'seriously ill'
• Georgian authorities claim jailed opposition figure Mikhail Saakashvili directing insurrection
• 'He will serve his full term': Georgian ex-leader Saakashvili plotted to kill opposition figures to frame government, PM claims

Georgia

• The next Maidan? US-EU assets pushing color revolution in Georgia
• Georgia does not want to become second Ukraine - PM
• Georgia accuses NATO countries of trying to orchestrate coup
• Georgia accuses Washington of trying to spark 'two revolutions'
• Georgia fight against US subversion and its implications worldwide
• Georgia says West & Ukraine 'disgraced themselves', is waiting for an apology over Saakashvili torture accusations