Ukraine on Monday rejected accusations by Georgian authorities who accused kyiv of "direct interference" in the protests that rocked Georgia last week.
“
We categorically reject such insinuations which have nothing to do with reality
,” reacted the spokesperson for Ukrainian diplomacy, Oleg Nikolenko, on Facebook, assuring that the Georgian authorities were looking for their “
enemy in the wrong place
”.
The day before, the Georgian Prime Minister, Irakli Garibachvili, had accused Kiev
of "direct interference
" in these protests.
Government backtracking
Irakli Garibachvili himself reacted to statements by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had wished "
democratic success
" to the demonstrators.
"
When a person who makes war finds the time to talk about a destructive demonstration (...) it is direct proof that this person is involved
," Irakli Garibachvili judged on Sunday on the pro-government television channel Imedi. TV.
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Last week, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the Georgian capital Tbilisi to oppose a bill denounced as a copy of a Russian law on "foreign agents",
which
serves in Russia to crack down on Kremlin critics.
After two nights of protests marked by clashes with the police, the Georgian government backtracked and withdrew the project.
Moscow for its part accused third countries of having fomented the demonstrations and described them as an “
attempted coup
”.
Georgia, a state of four million inhabitants, was the victim in 2008 of a Russian military intervention which resulted in the formation of two pro-Russian separatist territories, in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The country officially wants to join the European Union and NATO, but NGOs and opposition activists accuse the ruling party, Georgian Dream, of encouraging an authoritarian drift.