MEP says “colonial” Soviet Russian empire the “only artificial construction” in response to former Russian President’s comment on Georgia
The MEP stressed that the last Westerners should “drop their illusions” about a return to business as usual with this Russian regime, “listening to Medvedevs talk about Georgia and Kazakhstan being artificial states”. Photo: European Parliament
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Michael Gahler, a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, on Tuesday called the “colonial” Soviet Russian empire the “only artificial construction”, in response to a now-deleted post published on a social media channel of Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev that claimed Georgia “did not exist” as a country until its becoming a part of the Russian empire in 1801.
The MEP stressed that the last Westerners should “drop their illusions” about a return to business as usual with this Russian regime, “listening to Medvedev's talk about Georgia and Kazakhstan being artificial states”.
“The only artificial construction was the colonial Soviet Russian empire. Never again!” Gahler tweeted.
The last Westerners should drop their illusions about a return to business as usual with this Russian regime, listening to Medvedevs talk about Georgia and Kazakhstan being artificial states. The only artificial construction was the colonial soviet Russian empire. Never again!
— Michael Gahler (@gahler_michael) August 2, 2022
Archil Talakvadze, the Vice Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, on Tuesday said Georgia had a 5,000-year history of existence and “no-one can rewrite it”.
Talakvadze said the mentioned statement by Medvedev “once again” confirmed that Georgia has to “cross a difficult bridge” in time of “specific threats and challenges”, amid Russia's ongoing occupation of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali regions and its invasion of Ukraine.
In the deleted post, the top Russian official had also called Kazakhstan an “artificial state” and accused the Kazakh Government of conducting a “genocide of Russians”.
The post was later deleted, after which Medvedev's assistant Oleg Osipov said that former President's page in the Russian social media, VKontakte, was hacked.