Georgian Gov’t “realistic” about what it can do for Ukraine - President

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili on Wednesday said the country’s Government was being “realistic” about what it could do for Ukraine at this stage of the war in the latter, in comments on recent controversial statements by some Ukrainian authorities.

In an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle broadcaster, Zourabichvili said the Ukrainian side was sometimes “asking for more” from its partners, including Georgia, in the wake of the Russian invasion it was defending itself from.

They have had some harsh words for different partners, including [the United States Secretary of State] Blinken when he was coming, saying ‘Don’t bring chocolates, bring arms!’ They would like to also receive arms from Georgia, to have Georgia open a second front [in the conflict by taking armed action on its Russian-occupied regions]. All of that is not possible. I think that the Georgian Government is just being more realistic about what Georgia can do at this stage,” the President said.

Zourabichvili also stressed her country needed to be “careful” with the circumstance of its Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) regions being occupied by Russia since 2008, and with a possible “referendum” to join Russia slated by the de facto authorities in the latter.

[Georgia has] two occupied territories, one of which is now talking about a referendum to join Russia. Clearly we have to be careful because we don’t have many means and nobody would be ready to support Georgia in the same way, but that doesn’t in any way change the level of solidarity [for Ukraine] that we have,” Zourabichvili concluded.