Georgia being used by Russia to evade sanctions – UNM’s Gotsiridze

We have been saying this since the day the sanctions were imposed on Russia [for its invasion of Ukraine], that Georgia is being used by the Kremlin to circumvent the sanctions, an MP of the United National Movement opposition party, Roman Gotsiridze, told Front News on Thursday in response to the Czech ambassador’s suspicion. 

“Russia has specially adopted the so-called law on parallel imports. Any rebranded products are allowed to enter Russia. Despite our numerous requests, the Georgian authorities have refused to adopt a single normative act that would regulate the issue of evasion of sanctions. Apart from a verbal statement, we have no legal basis to stop it. Therefore, there is a risk that such facts, which the ambassador mentioned, might actually be happening. They [the west] will sanction us and it will hurt our country a lot”, said the MP. 

The Czech ambassador to Georgia claimed that imports from his country to Georgia had doubled this year and that some of the goods could be reimported to Russia.