If we were in the Government in 2008, we would have done our best to avoid that war, said the Prime Minister of Georgia at the Global Security Forum.

“Georgia is a small country, it is well equipped, it has a good army, but the country is small. I believe that this should be in the interest of any government, especially when the country is neither a member of the European Union nor NATO. That war was devastating and the result is that 20% of our territories are occupied by Russia. At that time, the war was not paid enough attention, no one imposed sanctions on Russia.

I believe that the world at that time did not think that the war here was serious, but after 6 years, Russia annexed Crimea. No one thought that Russia would do this. This was a surprise for us too, we have had 3 wars in the last 3 decades. In the 90s, when the USSR collapsed, we lost Abkhazia and Tskhinvali regions, then the civil war and the 2008 war.

Therefore, I believe that the world did not take this issue seriously, everything continued as usual”, - said Irakli Garibashvili.