“I believe journalists have closely observed Irakli Garibashvili’s political life. We’ve seen everything directed against him – threats, risks, attacks, etc., both from our internal treasonous opposition and from certain foreign actors,” Parliament Chairman Shalva Papuashvili told journalists.

“It was precisely during Irakli Garibashvili’s premiership that his principled position proved decisive. Despite pressure from political groups – with Biden’s administration’s former ambassador personally involved in this pressure to push Georgia into escalation with Russia – he withstood this pressure, stress, and demands. I think this proved, and it was precisely because of this quality, that our country and government withstood this pressure. We avoided war and destruction, which we could not have escaped had it not been for those firm decisions and had we followed exactly those people who were waving foreign countries’ flags on Rustaveli Avenue in front of Parliament in late February 2022, on the day the war started, the next day, during those days.

Georgian citizens were waving foreign flags and demanding that the Georgian government send fighters to war and impose sanctions; they were in direct communication with the Ukrainian government, trying somehow to drag us into this escalation. Today, let them look at the condition of the Ukrainian government – and we would have been in that same condition within just a few weeks in 2022,” Papuashvili noted.

According to him, the fact that peace has been maintained in the country and mothers have not had to mourn their children is due to the merit of Irakli Garibashvili and the Georgian Dream leadership.

“This reminds us what kind of people we’re dealing with – those who stood on Rustaveli Avenue waving foreign countries’ flags then and continue to wave foreign flags today. These people were directly pulling us toward war, only to hear words of praise from some foreign ambassador or politician. They would have sacrificed the entire country for this. Today, when they talk about heroic soldiers, mothers would have been dressed in mourning clothes, grieving for their children. Today, these people, among other things, fail to realise that they also survived all of this. So, if not for the decisions of our government then and Irakli Garibashvili’s firm position, Georgian society would either be mourning or their loved ones would be occupied with mourning them,” Shalva Papuashvili stated.