Ukraine calls on Georgia to abandon intensification of trade with Russia
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine considers the intensification of trade relations between Georgia and Russia categorically unacceptable and calls on Tbilisi to distance itself from Russia's decision to lift some of the existing trade sanctions.
This was stated by Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko on Facebook, Ukrinform reports.
He noted that Ukraine had noted the information regarding the cancellation of part of the Russian Federation’s trade sanctions against Georgia.
It is noted that the Russian Federation has made this decision against the backdrop of the Georgian authorities’ disinclination to support the new sanctions of the European Union against Russia..
"We believe the promotion of trade relations with Russia, whose armed forces are attacking peaceful Ukrainian cities with missiles and bombs, killing innocent civilians, including children, to be unacceptable in the strongest terms," the spokesman said.
The ministry also called on Tbilisi to distance itself publicly from the decision of the Russian Federation, whose leadership is violating international law and perpetrating war crimes in Ukraine..
Nikolenko added that doing business with Russian companies provides Russia with additional resources “to continue its atrocious war on Ukraine, and the profit thus earned is soaked in the blood of the murdered Ukrainian citizens.”
"Due to the 2008 Russian armed aggression against Georgia, the Georgian people, unfortunately, are well aware of the horrors of war that Ukrainians are forced to go through now. At the same time, it appears that the Georgian authorities must have forgotten all that and are now trying to seize the moment to cater for their own interests," he said.
On February 25, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili reportedly said that Georgia had no plans to join Western economic and financial sanctions against Russia.
According to media reports, the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control, Rosselkhoznadzor, responsible for imposing trade sanctions on unfriendly nations, has announced its intention to ease pressure on Georgia.
It is a question of lifting sanctions off 15 Georgian producers of milk and dairy products.