Tbilisi: The head of the State Security Service of Georgia, Grigol Liluashvili, on Friday stated that the occupation of the Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) region by Russia is posing a major threat to Georgia’s statehood.
The state security head stated that in 2021, Russian-occupied regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali served as an illegal station for heavy weapons and military contingents while carrying on intensive military exercises and the process of militarisation on the Georgian grounds.
“The occupying forces continued to make illegal arrests. The illegal so-called ‘modernisation’ has been prevalent. The main goal of this was to inflame the feeling of insecurity in the population, discredit state institutions and spread nihilism in public”, he said when presenting the 2021 report of the State Security Service to the Parliament.
According to Liluashvili, the Occupations forces have continued to make illegal arrests at the line of occupation near Abkhazia and Tskhivali regions, with an amnbition to create an instabilty among the Georgians.
The security head noted that at the end of 2021, a total of 7 citizens of Georgia had been under illegal detention, including Irakli Bebua, the one whose freedom had been illegally restricted by the occupation regime for nine long years.
I would like to assure that, first of all, the families of the illegally detained persons, as well as the honourable MPs, that all citizens of Georgia will be released from illegal detention. The state of Georgia has all the power to do so, and it shall practice to implement it”, Liluashvili concluded.
