Georgian Parliament Speaker: Georgia refused role of “sacrificial pawn” in global conflict

Georgian Parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Tuesday addressed the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and Georgia's strategic positioning, marking four years since the start of the full-scale war in Europe.

In his remarks while presenting the annual report of the Parliament’s activities, Papuashvili highlighted what he termed the “inability” of the European Union to manage the escalating crisis, noting that the continued warfare is not only a tragedy for Ukraine - Europe's largest state by territory - but also a catalyst for the erosion of the international security system.

“Four years ago, Georgia turned out to be ready to loudly reject the logic of war, stand on the side of peace, and bring back to the political epicenter the core principle of our national interest, as the main determinant and guarantor of our statehood. This is why certain forces, who arrogantly viewed the Georgian state and treated us with a utilitarian attitude, were outraged”, the speaker said.

“They had assigned us the role of a ‘sacrificial pawn’ in their geopolitical scenario. For them, foreign tutelage, prescriptive lessons, network activism, and multi-layered external funding were meant to be the instruments through which, in the time of war, Georgia would take on a new ‘function’ - to shed its own blood for someone else’s security, lose its own land to preserve another’s, and sacrifice its own future for the welfare of others”, he concluded.