Georgia has poured cold water on a call from the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine for the opening of a “second [military] front” against Russia. Alexey Danilov was appearing live on Kiev’s 1+1 TV station late on Saturday.
The senior official said that, should new conflicts break out between Russia and third parties, these scenarios would provide “quality support” to Ukraine in trying to fend off Moscow’s ongoing military assault.
Georgia could become one such party, Danilov suggested, criticizing the neutral stance taken by Tbilisi, which fought a brief war with Russia, in 2008. The Georgian leadership has abstained from imposing anti-Russian sanctions, arguing that such a step would only harm the country’s own economy.
“Georgia is behaving not very appropriately, to put it mildly,” the official said, calling on the Salome Zourabichvili government to try and “return” territories. Danilov was apparently referring to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke away from Tbilisi in the 1990s and are recognized as independent by Russia.