On the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine, the Georgian government can boldly look the Georgian people in the eye because we have remained faithful to our values, principles, and beliefs. This is why we were elected to power for the fourth time in October of last year, as the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Shalva Papuashvili, writes on social media.

"National interests are the guiding principle of our government, which includes the protection of independence and sovereignty, the unification of the country, and the improvement of the people’s well-being. These well-established national interests are also the cornerstone of our foreign policy. It is this understanding of national interests that has formed the basis of all the decisions we made before and after the start of the war in Ukraine.

Let’s go through the main dates of recent years to recall how our national interests shaped Georgia’s foreign policy.

Even before Russia invaded Ukraine, the Parliament of Georgia passed a resolution on Ukraine, which spoke about 'the inadmissibility of war' and called on all governments to refrain from escalating the situation. This resolution, adopted three years ago, closely aligns with the views of the current US administration, which considers peace to be the cornerstone of its policy," wrote Papuashvili.

According to him, after the war began, the Georgian government expressed full solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

"We were co-authors and signatories of all international political and legal documents condemning Russian aggression; we excluded any attempts to circumvent international sanctions imposed on Russia; we provided humanitarian assistance to Ukraine; we sheltered tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees, together with 300,000 internally displaced persons from occupied territories.

However, despite both open and covert pressure, we did not impose bilateral sanctions on Russia, nor did we restrict land and air travel, as it was clear that such an escalation would not affect Russia at all. For Georgia, without international security and economic guarantees, this would have led to economic collapse and a new war.

Despite our effective solidarity with Ukraine, the response from Zelensky’s administration was unclear. A week after the war began, Ukraine recalled its ambassador from Georgia, and President Zelensky addressed a protest rally in front of the Georgian Parliament, claiming that 'the Georgian people were better than the Georgian government,' clearly inciting protests against the Georgian government. Ukrainian officials, including the president’s security adviser, openly called on us to forcibly return Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region. We remember well the radical opposition acting in unison with the Ukrainian authorities, and the statements of NGOs linked to them, claiming that 'bombs were preferable to the shame' caused by the policies of the Georgian government.

The reactions from some Western capitals were no better. Despite having urged us for over a decade to adopt 'strategic patience,' they suddenly demanded that our government take an aggressive stance against Russia, even though such a stance posed a deadly risk of renewed military conflict. And all this was happening without offering any security guarantees or economic solidarity," the Speaker of the Parliament wrote.

Papuaashvili stated that from the first days of the war in Ukraine, Georgia had to endure both domestic and international pressure "to avoid getting involved in a conflict with Russia."

"In the summer of 2022, Georgia was denied EU candidate status, even though we had always been a leading country in the Eastern Partnership format, according to all EU indicators, and to this day, in many respects, we remain the leading country among all EU candidate states. This decision triggered a wave of protests organized by the radical opposition and foreign-funded NGOs.

In 2023 and the spring of 2024, the radical opposition and foreign-funded NGOs used the protest of the 'Foreign Influence Transparency Law' as a pretext to organize violent demonstrations against the government. At the same time, an orchestrated international campaign was launched to discredit the Georgian government.

After the parliamentary elections of October 2024, the radical opposition refused to enter Parliament, citing alleged election fraud, even though the final report from OSCE/ODIHR contained no such allegations. The protests against the government became more violent, and the reactions from some Western governments were astonishing, as they described the violence as 'peaceful' while calling the legitimate response from the Georgian government 'violent.'

Despite the constant pressure from both domestic radicals and their foreign patrons, the Georgian government has managed to lead the country through a minefield peacefully. It can now be said with certainty that the only guiding principle that allowed us to move our country in the right direction was our people's wisdom, faith, and loyalty to national interests.

In March 2009, just a few months after Russia’s invasion of Georgia, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed a symbolic reset button to her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. The following year, American and Western military personnel, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces, participated in Moscow’s 'Victory Day' celebrations. Georgia was left behind. In the West, this shameful fact went unnoticed, but Georgia learned the necessary lesson.

When 'Georgian Dream' won the elections in October 2012, Georgia’s new government began to focus on defending sovereignty and successfully protecting national interests. We placed national interests above any false philosophy of international solidarity, which we had already experienced when, during decades of Soviet occupation, Georgia’s national aspirations were suppressed in the name of 'proletarian solidarity' of the Communist International. Similarly, in recent years, we have been urged to subordinate our national interests to the vague demands of a new pseudo-liberal internationalism.

This will not happen, especially under the governance of the 'Georgian Dream,'" Shalva Papuashvili writes on social media.