Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani has expressed solidarity to Ukraine and its people stating “Georgia stands with Ukraine” amid high tension at the country’s border due to the build-up of Russian troops.
Threatening any country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is totally intolerable,” Zalkaliani wrote on Twitter.
Threatening any country's sovereignty and territorial integrity is totally intolerable. ???????? stands in solidarity with Ukraine ???????? and Ukrainian people. We #StandWithUkraine @DmytroKuleba ???????????????????? https://t.co/3eITUmv06q
— David Zalkaliani (@DZalkaliani) January 23, 2022
The Russia-US Strategic Stability Dialogue (SSD), a NATO-Russia council and the OSCE Permanent Council meetings took place a week ago where the ongoing military tension at Ukraine’s border was on top of the agenda.
The Russian Foreign Ministry put forward two proposals on ‘security guarantees’ between Russia, the US and NATO on December 17, which include restrictions on troop, ship, and aircraft deployments for both NATO and Russia, as well limits to the deployment of intermediate and short-range missiles abroad while on December 10 Russia released a statement demanding NATO member states rescind the 2008 Bucharest Summit declaration supporting Georgia and Ukraine's goal of becoming members of the alliance.
Following the SSD, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said that the US ‘will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO's open door policy,’ while Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that ‘Russia needs concrete guarantees that Ukraine and Georgia will never become NATO members.’
A support rally was held in solidarity with Ukraine outside the Ukrainian Embassy in Tbilisi yesterday where Georgian civil activists and politicians expressed their support for the Ukrainian people, condemning Russia's military build-up near the Ukrainian border.