Georgian Foreign Minister warns pressure to send volunteers or sanction Russia could have endangered national security

Georgian Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili on Thursday said the Government could not accept earlier calls to air-lift Georgian volunteers to Ukraine or impose unilateral sanctions on Russia because “no one could guarantee that such steps would not provoke a response that put our country’s security at risk”.

In an interview with the Spanish daily El Mundo, Botchorishvili recalled that, in the first weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, “serious pressure was exerted on Georgia”, yet “our responsibility was to do everything necessary to protect the state”.

She further emphasised that the Georgian Government had carefully analysed the forces behind such campaigns and acted with responsibility.

“We were asked to send volunteers to Ukraine using a government plane, to impose sanctions on Russia, and to take specific retaliatory measures. But no one gave us a guarantee that this would not provoke a response from Russia that could jeopardise our country’s security”, the FM noted.

“In such conditions, our responsibility grows - to do everything necessary to protect our state”, she concluded.