The second charge against me is cooperation with a foreign, hostile country with the aim of weakening the Georgian state. They don't mention it publicly, but it was said in court and it turned out that this foreign and hostile country is Ukraine. It was said that we were working with Ukraine so that Ukraine would sanction Bidzina Ivanishvili. Sanctioning Bidzina was meant to weaken Georgia, - one of the leaders of the Coalition for Change, Zurab Girchi Japaridze, stated on PalitraNews.

In addition, to the question of the host of the program, "As I understand, you were given a chance to leave the country, some people left, are not you leaving"? Japaridze replied that he does not intend to leave Georgia.

"I am not going anywhere, I have said it many times. It is out of the question, I will not leave this country," - said Japaridze.

To the question, "You are not going to leave, but what about others, do you know about others"? Japaridze replied that he does not know. "I talk to everyone and when it is an individual matter, everyone must decide for themselves. There is a lot of work to be done abroad as well," - said Japaridze.

When asked by the host of the program whether he advises them to leave the country, Zurab Japaridze said: "Yes, I advise some people to leave, in my opinion, it would be more correct for some people to go and do something abroad."

In addition, he spoke about the so-called sabotage case and the charges brought against him.

"I have two charges brought against me. One, which Giorgi Vashadze and Laka [Elene Khoshtaria] have separately and provides for imprisonment from 7 to 15 years, is cooperation with a foreign, hostile country with the aim of weakening the Georgian state.

They don't say it publicly, but it was said during the trial and it turned out that this foreign and hostile country is Ukraine. It was said that we were working with Ukraine so that Ukraine would sanction Bidzina. Sanctioning Ivanishvili is equated with weakening Georgia. They dare not say this publicly, and the court proceedings are closed, and it was said during these proceedings that this state was Ukraine. What they have in the case materials are public statements by Zelensky and Podoliak, which I don’t know what has to do with this case at all. I personally have not had any communication with Ukraine, but I ask everyone to sanction them [the Georgian Dream].

No witnesses have been questioned about this accusation, nor have they been discussed, and there has been no discussion at all yet. We simply assume that since [Ukraine] was mentioned, that is what they mean.

Even now, when I was at the congress, I did nothing more, including meeting with ministers from several ALDE member states.

Maybe this case [the accusation] is an attempt to make the trade and negotiations not about the fact that there is a decline in democracy in the country and there are problems in all aspects, but about whether or not to release these people [politicians]. I don’t think the West will come to this bargain, in any case, no one can bargain with me without my permission,” said Zurab Japaridze.

The opposition politician spoke about participating in the elections and noted that those who participate in the elections do not have an answer as to how they will insure themselves against the risks that occurred in the last elections.

“Participating in the elections has been reduced to a primitive way, as if it comes down to whether Zurab Japaridze or his party is written on the ballot or not. This is a very frivolous attitude.