‘I don’t exclude new aggression from Russia,’ former minister Petriashvili says
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, March 5
I do not exclude Russia to launch an aggressive military campaign in Georgia, - former State Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Georgia Aleksi Petriashvili told the Georgian media Kviris Palitra.
Petriashvili responded to the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin about “unpleasant surprise for Georgia” and the claims of the Russian Defence Minister that his country “is forced” to respond to NATO’s activity in the region.
“This is the continuation of the Kremlin's classical rhetoric, so everyone, especially the government, needs to be cautioned. The rating of the Russian president is too low now, and usually, Putin tries to correct it with wars. A full-scale attack on Ukraine is often discussed in the recent period. They also talk about ‘swallowing’ Belarus.
“However, I do not rule out that Russia intends to launch an aggressive military campaign in Georgia. This may be related to Anaklia port. Russian military officials have repeatedly spoken about it, they are afraid that NATO might use the port frequently,” Petriashvili said.
Karasin said in his interview with “Kommersant” that Georgia must choose between the peace in the region and its Euro-Atlantic goals.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili claims that today Georgia is much more independent, strong and developed than “the neighbor wants it to be, which looks at us with suspicion and sometimes uses the language of threats”.
“Today and yesterday there were still some threats from our northern neighbor. This is the situation, in which we live – pressure, attempts, threats. This is an attempt to use the occupied territories to weaken Georgia, however, this attempt is unsuccessful,” Zurabishvili said.
