No “Russia is waging war” justifies xenophobia. The goal of xenophobia is to incite hatred and violence - this is how the Speaker of the Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, responded to the information spread on the social network by human rights defender, Baia Pataraia, where she says that “Russians have been encouraged to enter Georgia by the Georgian Dream ahead of the August war, who created comfort for them, which is a provocation.”

As Papuashvili writes on the social network, “This is xenophobia funded and incited by the EU Embassy.”

“Of course, this is xenophobia and, of course, this is xenophobia funded and incited by the EU Embassy. No “Russia is waging war” justifies xenophobia. Many countries have waged wars and many still wage them today, where people die, but this does not give anyone the right to turn nationalities into objects of hatred.

This is, at least, our Georgian worldview. In general, this should be the case for the European worldview, at least for the last 80 years. Otherwise, since we have gone through wars, as much as our misfortunes allow, we should have been a nation full of hatred. Such a nation could not have survived for millennia. That is why these NGOs are alien to Georgian society. That is why the hatred, enmity and hostility with which they walk the streets today are so foreign and unacceptable to our society.

The goal of xenophobia is to incite hatred and incite violence. We all remember the xenophobic campaign of the same NGOs in 2022. Then, things got to the point that someone threw a stone at a Slavic-looking woman on Chavchavadze Avenue, who later turned out to have lived in Georgia for years. Of course, the goal of this new wave of pro-European xenophobia is to stir up hatred and incite violence. And, of course, the EU embassy will neither condemn nor distance itself from the xenophobia of the ones it has funded, while the Brussels spokesperson will say that calling someone a “pig” because of their nationality is not xenophobia?” - writes Shalva Papuashvili.

For information, Baia Pataraia writes on social networks that “the Georgian Dream has created comfort for Russians in Georgia. As she notes, the Georgian Dream is deliberately provoking the public by bringing in Russian soldiers ahead of the August war, so that later “it can arrest Georgian patriots again because of the Russian pigs.”