Opposition’s calls amid Prigozhin’s march part of their “patrons’” plans to drag Tbilisi into war – ruling party head

Irakli Kobakhidze, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Monday claimed the reactions of the “radical wing” of the domestic opposition to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary group’s boss march in Russia earlier this month, was part of their “patrons’” plans to “drag” Georgia into the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. 

 

Calling the march a “one-day adventure” , Kobakhidze claimed the “radical opposition had failed to analyze the situation “properly” and were calling for the forcible reintegration of the country’s currently Russian controlled Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) regions. 

 

“The most significant in the radical opposition’s reaction to Prigozhin’s march was another demonstration of their longing for a second front. They could not hide that if they had the appropriate leverage, they would use the first chance to enter Abkhazia and Tskhinvali with tanks. It has been proven once again that the collective national movement is a party of war and betrayal, whose goal is to use any excuse to open a second front in Georgia”, Kobakhidze said. 

 

He claimed “naturally, the collective United National Movement did not make these statements by chance”, adding  “such demands” were coming from their unspecified foreign patrons. 

 

In contrast, Kobakhidze said the country “needs not a second front, but a pragmatic and rational peace policy, not to shake the trust between Georgians and Abkhazians, Georgians and Ossetians, but to restore trust. We do not need a war with each other, but we need to support each other to build a united, successful state,” Kobakhidze wrote.