“It’s not important what I think, what’s important is what the people of Georgia think, and they are making it very clear. No one should expect Georgians to welcome people from a country that occupies 20% of Georgia’s territory,” said US Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan remarking on the entry of cruise liner Astoria Grande with Russian passengers on board in Batumi port.

According to the US Ambassador, Georgian people use constitutionally protected rights to express their protest.

“No one should expect Georgians to welcome people from a country that occupies 20% of Georgia’s territory and that keeps families apart through artificial ABLs, that detains Georgian citizens and holds them sometimes for months at a time.

No one should expect Georgians to welcome people from that country. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s by land or by sea, I think that people are making it very clear that they don’t want this.

They’re using their constitutionally protected right to express that feeling too, to protest against this, and that is what is allowed in a democracy and that’s allowed under Georgia’s constitution,” Kelly Degnan said.

Georgian citizens protested at the Batumi port against the entry of the cruise liner Astoria Grande with Russian passengers on board. For the second time this week, the cruise liner Astoria Grande docked in Batumi. It last transported Russians to Batumi on July 27.