Controversial visit

Yuri Luzhkov, former Mayor of Moscow, who previously visited Georgia’s de facto Abkhazia and Tskhinvali regions as independent republics, has now visited Georgia, viewed some historical sites and had a meal at a restaurant...and border guards created no obstacles for him to do all this.

Previously, in 2006 and 2009, Luzhkov visited Georgia's breakaway regions without the consent of the government of Georgia, which is the violation of Georgian legislation; Luzhkov should have been faced sanctions for this.

“As far as I have been informed, there was no particular reason for preventing Luzkhov from entering Georgia when crossing the state border,” Georgia’s Deputy Interior Minister Shalva Khutsishvili said.

Khutsishvili stressed the border guards saw “no sign” to find out this fact.

“All the rest are subjects of an additional discussion. He entered by a legal document that envisaged no sign of him having violated the law on occupied territories. Therefore the border guards had no formal basis to make any different decision,” Khutsishvili said.

It is very interesting how a man who had violated Georgian law so easily managed to enter Georgia and the border guards mentioned no stamps in his passport.

It is also interesting whether this was a “mistake” of an ordinary guard, or somebody supervising him/her.

The fact enables us to make one conclusion: either the border guard lacked qualifications - which is very bad as terrorists or criminals will also be able to cross the state border easily - or Luzhkov was deliberately allowed to do this step, despite the fact of his breaking Georgian law, which is also very negative and indicates towards the current authorities' possibly loyal attitudes to Russian current or former officials.