UN Security Council members demand Russia return land to Georgia

Six Western nations on the United Nations Safety Council have demanded Russia return territory it took from Georgia on the fifteenth anniversary of the land seize.

The USA, United Kingdom, France, Albania, Japan, and Malta, issued a joint assertion stating that Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia “marked a extra aggressive development” in its coverage towards neighboring international locations. They known as for the land — the South Ossetia and Abkhazia areas, which beforehand made up 20% of Georgia’s territory — to be returned.

The six international locations stated they “are resolute” in reaffirming Georgia’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity “inside its internationally acknowledged borders.”

The assertion additionally condemned Russia’s “brutal invasion” of Georgia and its “steps towards annexation of those Georgian areas.”

The assertion additionally highlighted Russia’s continued navy workouts in Georgia’s land, sea, and airspace, its set up of a barbed wire fences and different blockades, its detentions and abductions of native individuals, and discrimination in opposition to Georgians.

The six international locations went on decry Moscow’s “steady provocations which go in parallel with the Russian Federation’s unprovoked and unjustified aggression in opposition to Ukraine.”

Russian Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky hit again on the coalition of Western international locations, calling the demand “hypocrisy” in a statement posted to X, previously often called Twitter, and claimed Georgia misplaced territory due to a “reckless gamble.”

Polysansky additionally stated that ties between Russia and Georgia are “regularly bettering, enabling vacationer and financial exchanges,” together with the resuming of direct flights between the 2 international locations in Might.

“However the Russophobic West is just not glad and making an attempt to drive the wedge between us at any worth,” he stated. “This assertion is a transparent illustration of this.”

The Russian ambassador went on to name the joint assertion “particularly sickening and hypocritical” and claimed Ukraine “is being sacrificed proper now by the U.S. and its allies for Western geopolitical pursuits in a futile NATO proxy warfare in opposition to Russia till the final Ukrainian.”

With Put up Wires.