TBILISI, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Georgia on Monday accused a former deputy interior minister now working for Ukraine’s secret service of plotting to encourage civil unrest to overthrow the government in Tbilisi, bringing to light is testing its relations with Ukraine as Georgia deepens its relations with Russia.
State security services said they were monitoring a group led by Giorgi Lortkipanidze, now deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence but previously a deputy minister in a strongly pro-Western Georgian government.
“According to confirmed and verified information, the implementation of the plan – developed by Giorgi Lortkipanidze – would involve a fairly large group of Georgian fighters in Ukraine and part of the Georgian youth, influenced by those involved, whose training takes place near of the Polish border. “Ukrainian state border,” the service said in a statement.
He provided no corroborating evidence and no comment was immediately available from kyiv or Lortkipanidze.
The statement said the alleged plotters planned to channel the likely frustration of young Georgians if the European Union failed to grant their country candidate status after a process culminating in an EU summit in mid-December.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday that the future of Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkan countries was “in our union”, but that it was more careful on Georgia, which EU officials say has fallen back on the path to membership.
The Caucasian republic, which says it is determined to join the EU, was refused candidate status last year even though Ukraine and Moldova obtained it.
At the time, Brussels said Tbilisi needed to reduce political polarization and improve the functioning of state institutions.
Relations with Europe have also suffered since the start of the war in Ukraine, as the Georgian government has avoided blaming Moscow, even though the Georgian population is strongly pro-kyiv.
Many Georgians are unhappy with Russia’s support for the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Georgians are well represented among the foreigners fighting for Kiev.
Although Georgia has shipped humanitarian aid to Ukraine, it has refused to impose sanctions on Russia and in May allowed direct flights to and from its vast neighbor for the first time since 2019.
The same month, Prime Minister Irakli Garibachvili blamed the expansion of the Western NATO alliance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In December, the chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party suggested that Georgian citizens fighting in Ukraine could lose their citizenship.
Ukraine has also criticized Georgian authorities for imprisoning Mikheil Saakhashvili, a pro-Western former president who acquired Ukrainian citizenship.
Georgian state security services named a former Saakashvili bodyguard among the alleged conspirators, as well as the commander of a Georgian unit fighting in Ukraine.
Report by Félix Light; Editing by Kevin Liffey
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