Georgia responds to Ukrainian call to attack Russia

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Georgia has responded to Ukraine's Secretary of National Security and Defense Council's request for the establishment of a "second front" against Russia. Late Saturday, Alexey Danilov was live on Kiev's 1+1 TV station.

According to the senior official, if fresh conflicts erupt between Russia and third parties, these scenarios would provide "excellent assistance" to Ukraine in its efforts to face Russia's military operation. 

Georgia, Danilov claimed, may become one of these parties, criticizing Tbilisi's neutral position after a brief war with Russia in 2008. Georgia's administration has refrained from imposing anti-Russian sanctions, considering that doing so would undermine the country's economy.

“Georgia is behaving not very appropriately, to put it mildly,” the official said, calling on the Salome Zourabichvili government to try and “return” territories. Danilov was alluding to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two Georgian republics that broke away from Tbilisi in the 1990s and are now recognized as autonomous by Russia.

“But, what if both Pridnestrovie, and Georgia, and everyone would embark on returning their territories today,” Danilov asked. A Russian peacekeeping force has been stationed for decades in Transnistria. 

“This would definitely help us because that would make them busy with something besides destroying our cities and villages, killing our children and women.”

Georgia responds

Danilov's warlike calls, on the other hand, have been met with a frosty reaction in Georgia, with various leaders strongly opposing such views. Nikoloz Samharadze, the leader of Georgia's parliamentary foreign affairs committee and a member of the ruling Georgian Dream party, voiced doubts that such statements could not have been issued by that top official at all.

“I hope this is a lie. Does the Secretary of the Security Council of Ukraine call on Georgia and others to abandon the policy of peaceful restoration of their territorial integrity, opening a second front to destroy our cities and villages, so that Georgian women and children die too? Is this true?” Samkharadze wondered in a social media post.

A similar sentiment was expressed by another MP from the Georgian Dream party, Mikhail Sardzhveladze, who said that igniting more conflicts “will not help or become a relief for Ukraine.”

Danilov also supported the concept of reclaiming the Kaliningrad region from Russia, which was proposed earlier this week by ex-Polish Land Forces commander General Waldemar Skrzypczak. The general claimed that the formerly German region, which ended up under Russian rule after the defeat of the Nazis in World War Two, was, in fact, Polish land.

The remarks drew widespread condemnation in Russia, with the governor of the region, Anton Alikhanov, warning the Polish general not to make territorial claims because "a very large part of the land that is now Poland was conquered, claimed from Nazi Germany, and transferred as a gift from the Soviet to the Polish people."