Georgian Govt’s Strategic Communication Department rejects “disinformation” about PM’s comments in thinktank researcher Tweet

Georgia: The Georgian Government’s Department of Strategic Communication on Thursday denied as “disinformation” a tweet by a researcher of the Georgian-based Economic Policy Research Center thinktank that alleged that the head of Government, Irakli Garibashvili, had claimed Georgia’s Western allies had wanted to drag the nation “into the war” in the wake of Russia’s military aggression over Ukraine.

In response to this, the Department stated that the tweet by the thinktank’s researcher Shota Gvineria claimed that the PM had “never made a statement of this sort” against his Government’s American and European allies.

Moreover, Gvineria tweeted on Wednesday, “PM Garibashvili recently stated that ‘friends’ (Americans and Europeans) wanted to start a conflict in Georgia (a second Mariupol), and he had to disappoint them by siding with Russia rather than Ukraine. Literally.”

The social media post came after Garibashvili made statements to the local media in which he criticised “accusations” levelled against his Government by the local political opposition, which he said were intended to “create a second front in Georgia during the conflict in Ukraine.”

While commenting on this, Garibashvili stated that by taking stances on the Ukraine war that averted a conflict in Georgia, he had “crushed the expectations of all supposed ‘friends’ who desired a battle in our nation” and that “there would be no second front and no second war” in the nation under his Government.

He also said a couple of days ago that Georgia would be at war today if imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili was still in power.

Georgian Premier accused a part of Georgia’s political opposition of making “baseless accusations” against the Government over its stance on Ukraine’s conflict and warned that if Georgia had a Saakashvili-led government now, a “second Mariupol” would occur, referring to Russian devastation of the Ukrainian city since the Kremlin’s invasion of the country in February.