This Monday, Georgia accused a senior Ukrainian official of plotting a coup to overthrow the Caucasian country’s government at a time when relations between Kiev and Tbilisi are deteriorating.
Georgia’s National Security Service has accused Georgy Lortkipanidze, deputy head of Ukrainian military counterintelligence, of plotting to “violently overthrow the government” with the complicity of a “foreign state.”
Lortkipanidze is a former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia (equivalent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs).
Georgian National Security also named a former bodyguard of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who previously held official positions in Ukraine, as one of the collaborators of Georgians fighting Russian troops on Ukrainian territory.
Some of these people are “training close to the border between Ukraine and Poland,” Georgian National Security Service said.
According to the official statement, the alleged plan called for anti-government demonstrations in Tbilisi “in October and December” – the dates when the next assessment of Georgia’s progress in the process of joining the European Union (EU) is due to be published.
The government in Tbilisi has been accused of collaborating with the Kremlin, despite the deployment of Russian troops in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia following Moscow’s 2008 invasion.
In July, Kyiv summoned the Georgian ambassador, accusing Tbilisi of torturing Mikheil Saakashvili, also a citizen of Ukraine and adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, in prison.
In June 2022, the EU refused candidate status to Georgia, granting it to Ukraine and Moldova.
Brussels is asking Tbilisi to carry out reforms in the judicial and electoral systems, as well as demand guarantees of freedom of the press and “actions to combat the oligarchs.”
In early March, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Tbilisi, accusing the government of retreating from the country’s pro-Western aspirations.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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