The Prime Minister of Georgia, Iraklii Garibashvili, supported the decision of the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, to cancel the visa regime for Georgian citizens and restore air connections with Georgia.
According to him, we are talking about flights by planes that are not under sanctions, and this is "part of trade and economic relations."
"Direct flights with Russia have, I will name several large countries - China, a superpower; Turkey, which is our friend, a neighboring country and a huge state with a large economy, a member of NATO and a country that already has the status of a candidate for EU membership; (The United Arab Emirates; Israel, one of the strategic partners of the USA, a real model for imitation in many directions - they always go and implement their own national policy towards all states; our neighbors are Azerbaijan, Armenia. All these countries today have direct air connections with by Russia using unauthorized aircraft," Garibashvili said.
The Prime Minister says that previously Georgian citizens had to travel to Russia via Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan or Turkey, "had to wait for hours and pay two or three times more for a ticket", and direct flights will make their lives easier.
Russia is canceling the visa regime for citizens of Georgia, which was introduced almost 23 years ago - in 2000. There are no diplomatic relations between the countries - they were broken by Georgia after the 2008 war. At the same time, the Georgian authorities unilaterally canceled the visa regime for residents of the North Caucasian republics of Russia in October 2010, and for all Russians in February 2012.
Russia has previously interrupted air connections with Georgia three times. The last time this happened was in the summer of 2019 due to protests in Tbilisi that began after a speech in the Georgian parliament by a member of the Russian State Duma, Sergei Gavrilov. He took the speaker's chair and spoke in Russian. The Georgian opposition disrupted the meeting, Gavrilov left Georgia under guard.
After the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised the Georgian government several times for its decision not to join the sanctions against Russia. He said that the current Georgian leaders "show a responsible approach" that is based on the fundamental interests of their people and "refuse from this kind of measures."
