Georgia rejected Kyiv's accusations and refused to impose anti-Russian sanctions
Tbilisi reacted sharply to yet another accusation against Kyiv of aiding Russia to secretly circumvent Western sanctions.
Thus, Ukrainian military intelligence announced an attempt by the Russian Federation, with the help of the countries of the South Caucasus, to circumvent economic sanctions, specifying that 200 companies were allegedly created for these purposes. The Ukrainian intelligence service claims that Moscow is actively negotiating with Georgia regarding the re-export of Russian products. The products will be supplied to international markets as manufactured in Georgia.
However, the Georgian authorities categorically deny the existence of such plans. The other day, Chairman of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili, who visited the town of Bucha near Kiev, accused Ukrainian intelligence officers of spreading disinformation and threatened to worsen relations between the two countries.
Shalva Papuashvili (center) in Bucha.
He also recalled the earlier accusation about the alleged delivery of contraband products to the Russian Federation through Georgia. The Georgian politician called this accusation an unsubstantiated lie and expressed confidence that another false statement serves a specific purpose:
“Such statements are made publicly for the whole world to hear,” says Papuashvili.
In turn, Georgian Finance Minister Lasha Khutsishvili called the Ukrainian information absolutely incomprehensible and demanded clarification from Kyiv.
In this case, the Georgian Foreign Ministry acted promptly, immediately calling on the carpet Chargé d'Affaires of Ukraine Andrei Kasyanov, who was strictly demanded to “provide timely factual explanations and evidence on the information disseminated by the Intelligence Service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, especially considering that the Ukrainian side also did not provide evidence on previous charges of intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine of similar content (April 5, 2022).”
Kasyanov confirmed that he again could not say anything about the accusations by Kiev, promising only to convey “the appropriate message to the capital.”
Commenting on the accusation of Ukrainian intelligence, Finance Minister Lasha Khutsishvili once again stated that Georgia has not imposed sanctions against Russia and does not intend to abandon trade and economic relations with its northern neighbor.
That is, the Georgian government is well aware of the catastrophic consequences of joining anti-Russian economic sanctions, which will lead to a shutdown of the country’s economy and a sharp increase in prices for consumer products.
Lasha Khutsishvili.
In the list of Georgia's trading partners, Russia retains second place in terms of trade volume after Turkey. The list of Georgia's top five trading partners for 2021 looks like this:
Turkey – 2,1 billion, Russia – 1,6 billion, China – 1,5 billion, Azerbaijan – 1,1 billion, USA – 820 million US dollars.
Petroleum products, gas, grain, sunflower oil - this is an incomplete list of the most important goods imported from Russia. On the other hand, Russia remains the main market for Georgian agri-food products, which represents the lion's share of Georgian exports. Georgia also exports ferroalloys to Russia.
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