TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia’s acting prime minister accused Ukraine on Tuesday of trying to spread war to his country, after authorities seized what they said was a truck loaded with explosives bound for Russia.
Georgia’s State Security Service said on Monday it had seized the clandestine shipment of explosives bound for the Russian city of Voronezh, hidden in a cargo of car batteries driven overland from Ukraine via Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.
The incident recalls a blast on Russia’s bridge to Crimea in Oct. 2022, which Moscow says was carried out by Kyiv using explosives hidden in a truck sent from Ukraine on a long route over third countries.
“This once again confirms what, in principle, the high-ranking officials of the Ukrainian government openly said that they wanted and probably still want: a second front in our country,” Georgian Prime Minister-designate Iralki Kobakhidze said, in remarks reported by media outlet Interpressnews.
Kobakhidze has been appointed to replace Irakli Garibashvili, who stepped down as prime minister last week to let the Georgian Dream party, which has ruled the country since 2013, pick a new figure to lead it into elections this year.
The party is seen within Georgia as having steered what was once one of the most pro-Western former Soviet states in a more pro-Russian direction, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Ukraine’s embassy said it was looking into the allegations by the Georgian security service “regarding the involvement of Ukrainian citizens in illegal activities”, and called on Tbilisi not to politicise the incident.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Georgia was recalled for consultations in March 2023 due to disagreements between the two countries, and later fired by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, leaving the embassy with a lower ranking diplomat in charge.
Russia has troops stationed in two breakaway regions of Georgia and fought a brief war there in 2008. Georgia was once linked with Ukraine and Moldova as former Soviet states keenest on closer integration with the West, but since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine it has fallen behind those others in pursuing membership of NATO and the EU.
(Reporting by Felix Light; Writing by Maxim Rodionov; Editing by Peter Graff)
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