I suspect that the notorious Arab investment is actually a means of laundering sanctioned Russian money, - one of the leaders of Lelo - Strong Georgia, Salome Samadashvili, stated on Palitranews.

According to Samadashvili, "money laundering" is taking place using such networks.

Samadashvili spoke in the context of calls from European structures to Georgia. According to her, the European Union is not demanding from Georgia to impose sanctions against Russia, but to create an economic, trade and export regime with Russia that will protect our country from the use of its territory and infrastructure to evade sanctions.

“In fact, the current Georgian government is not doing anything to ensure that the sanctions adopted by the European Union are actually protected as a result of the policy pursued by our government. We remember at various times, including as a result of journalistic investigations, information leaked about the so-called secondary sales and re-exports from Georgia.

One of the main topics today is that Great Britain has made a very important decision in terms of oil sanctions, has already expanded the network of sanctions, and this is very important because one of the greatest harms that Russia is inflicting is precisely through the use of sanctions imposed on oil. We have repeatedly heard that various businesses operate in Georgia that, together with Russian partners, launder sanctioned Russian oil in order to resell it in markets where it would not have entered otherwise.

The same applies to the use of our territory for what enters Russia. This is a serious challenge because relevant studies show that to this day Russia is receiving dual-use, multi-use items that they use to create weapons. One of the likely sources of this is Georgia. The European Union says so. Why is there no similar call for sanctions against Moldova? Because Moldova seems to be cooperating with the European Union, with much greater success, in order to better protect the sanctions regime that the European Union has imposed on Russia. What sanctions should Georgia impose on Russia? It should not impose sanctions, Georgia should create an economic, trade and export regime with Russia that will protect our country from the use of our territory and infrastructure to evade sanctions," Samadashvili said.

In addition, Samadashvili spoke about the announced Arab investment in Georgia and said that this is also a means of laundering sanctioned Russian money.

"I suspect that this notorious Arab investment is actually a means of laundering sanctioned Russian money. Money is being laundered using these networks because it is unclear why transparency was not achieved regarding this project and the government has a strong reaction to all demands for transparency because, in addition to Arab interests, I think there are also serious interests of Russian sanctioned assets," Salome Samadashvili said.