Georgian Parliamentary Majority Leader: UNM’s Rhetoric Is Anti-Russian, but Its Actions Were Pro-Russian

Georgia’s Parliamentary Majority Leader and Georgian Dream faction chairman Irakli Kirtskhalia has accused the opposition United National Movement (UNM) of pursuing policies that ultimately served Russian interests despite its anti-Russian rhetoric.

Speaking on Imedi LIVE, Kirtskhalia was responding to recent statements on Abkhazia by former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and former senior official Giorgi Baramidze.

“Their rhetoric is anti-Russian, but their actions are pro-Russian. This was evident throughout their time in government, whether through deepening economic relations or, ultimately, surrendering territories,” Kirtskhalia said.

He referred to a series of decisions made under the former UNM government, including developments surrounding the Kodori Gorge and the use of the designation “South Ossetia,” as well as decisions taken before and after the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia.

“We did not call them people without a homeland for nothing, this is an agent network. Let us start with their time in government: their rhetoric was anti-Russian, while their actions were pro-Russian. Whether it was deepening economic relations or surrendering territories,” he said.

Kirtskhalia argued that decisions taken by the previous government had subsequently been used as arguments in international legal proceedings concerning Georgia’s occupied territories.

He also accused the former government of betraying Georgian servicemen through a post-war resolution, claiming it effectively placed responsibility for war crimes on Georgian soldiers.

“This agent-controlled force directly handed Georgian territories over to the occupier. After that betrayal, they committed another one. We all remember the resolution in which they directly accused those young men of war crimes the very heroes whose names they now shamelessly invoke,” Kirtskhalia said.

According to the Parliamentary Majority Leader, subsequent statements by former UNM officials had revealed what he described as the ultimate purpose of their policies.

“It has now become completely clear what their actions were actually intended to achieve. Ultimately, they wanted us to accept a reality that no Georgian will ever accept,” he said.

Kirtskhalia claimed that, had the UNM remained in power, it would have attempted to prepare Georgian society to accept the loss of the country’s occupied territories.

“I am convinced that if they had remained in government, they would have tried to make society accept this reality and create a platform that would make giving up the territories less painful for the public,” he said.

Kirtskhalia also accused the UNM’s foreign allies of seeking to weaken states in which they want to exert influence.

“An agent always carries out an assignment. Today, their patrons in Brussels have one objective: to make the states where they want to exercise influence as vulnerable as possible. Society is perfectly capable of judging both them and those who commission them,” Kirtskhalia said.