On February 8, the program “Sum-Up of the Day with Nikoloz Mzhavanadze” on the Sezoni TV channel aired a report about the attempt to open the so-called “second front” in Georgia. The report featured a comment by David Kramer, the Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute, as if saying that Georgia should regain the territories occupied by Russia and that Georgia should force Russia to withdraw its armed forces from Ukraine. The report also quoted Ian Kelly, former US ambassador to Georgia as saying that the West should find those who would ensure that Georgia turns back to the European course and finance “targeted attacks” on their part.
The comments made by David Kramer and Ian Kelly were misrepresented in the Sezoni TV report. In fact, they are not talking about the need to retake the territories militarily or to finance “attacks” by local forces. David Kramer talks about the importance of Ukraine’s victory as an opportunity for Georgia to regain its territories occupied by Russia, while Ian Kelly focuses on ways of turning the country towards the European course.
On November 29, 2022, Anna Fotyga, Member of the European Parliament and Secretary-General of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party, hosted a discussion on “The Oligarch, Russian Links, War in Ukraine, and the Future of Georgia.” The participants in the discussion were Ian Kelly, David Kramer, and former Georgian State Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration Tornike Gordadze. The Sezoni TV channel used fragments of this very discussion in its report. The host of the program, Nikoloz Mzhavanadze, claimed that Ian Kelly and David Kramer demanded the opening of a “second front” in Georgia, and their comments appeared in the report with a wrong translation, which changed the content of their words.
In reality, David Kramer was talking about the chance that emerged for Georgia to regain its territories. According to him, Ukraine’s victory in the war with Russia will increase the possibility for Georgia to regain its territories, and if Ukraine wins the war, a weakened Russia may reconsider its policy towards Georgia’s occupied territories. In this discussion, Kramer says that no one wants to spread the war that is going on in Ukraine and that Georgia does not necessarily need to regain its territories through war. Mzhavanadze misinterprets Kramer’s words, claiming that Kramer recommends that Georgia return the occupied territories in parallel with the Russia-Ukraine war.
As for Ian Kelly, he emphasizes Georgia’s foreign policy course, stating that Georgia’s turn away from the West is evident. He also notes that the United States should reconsider ways of supporting Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspiration and look at those who are responsible for deviating from the Western path. Ian Kelly does not say that the US should find people in Georgia and finance “targeted attacks” on their part.
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Fragments aired on the Sezoni TV channel |
Real quotes |
| David Kramer: “The best way for Georgia would be to regain its territories seized by Russia and thereby help Ukraine win, that is, to force Russia to drive its military forces out of Ukraine.” | David Kramer: „…I think the best way for Georgia to be in a position to recover control over 20% of its territory is to help Ukraine win. By helping Ukraine win, and by that I mean driving Russian forces off of the Ukrainian territory, sending them back to Russia, liberating Ukraine, that will free up a possibility for Georgia to then regain control over its territory, not necessarily through war; no one wants that; no one want the spread of the war that we have seen since February 24, but the weakened Russia after a victorious Ukraine may realize that maintaining control over 20% of Georgian territory is not only immoral and unfair and illegal but not in Russia’s interest at the end of the day.” |
| Ian Kelly: “We see that the Georgian government is clearly turning its back on the West, and we have two questions: whether to continue to support it on its path towards NATO and, secondly, how to reverse its anti-Western course. I think we need to find those who will cause this reversal and finance targeted attacks by them in order to prevent the country from deviating from the correct path, even if the rest of the West does not agree with us.” | Ian Kelly: “… We need to look again at how we are supporting these Euro-Atlantic aspirations and what we can do to stop this trend, this anti-Western trend, this trend away from implementing the kind of reforms that they need to and really, these personal attacks against the United States. I think we have to look at ways that we can play a positive role in supporting the Georgian people and their historic aspirations to join the collective West. I think we have to look at some of the people who are perpetrating this turn away from the West and look at the kind of targeted costs that we can apply trying to forestall what looks to be a slippery path towards, in many ways, even nonalignment with the West.” |
Misquoting or manipulative dissemination of quotes to discredit is a common practice. Myth Detector regularly checks for fake or misinterpreted quotes. See some examples:
- NATO INTEGRATION AT THE COST OF TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY – PRO-GOVERNMENTAL ACTORS’ COORDINATED MANIPULATION AGAINST DAVID KRAMER
- FABRICATED QUOTE DISSEMINATED UNDER THE NAME OF US AMBASSADOR ROBIN DUNNIGAN
- HAS NIKA GVARAMIA SAID THAT GEORGIA MUST CEDE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES TO JOIN NATO AND THE EU?
- THE QUOTE ATTRIBUTED TO VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY ABOUT THE RETURN OF OCCUPIED ABKHAZIA IS FABRICATED
- FACEBOOK PAGE SUPPORTIVE OF ‘ALLIANCE OF PATRIOTS’ DISSEMINATES DISINFORMATION ABOUT DAVID KRAMER
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