A well-armed, and as it appears, well-trained group appeared near the Georgian-Russian border in the direction of Dagestan-Chechnya.
This group took local citizens of Georgia as hostages.
We took measures; negotiated with representatives of this armed group; offered them to surrender to us, on which we received several negative answers.
Freeing the last hostage was followed by gun fire, which resulted in the death of one of their group members.
Clashes continued throughout last night.
Unfortunately, three of our warriors lost their lives during these clashes.
Based on the data received from our drone, as well as other sources on the ground, the absolute majority of their armed group has been eliminated.
I would like to make a statement related to these events: we had a case in the 90s, when there was a great unrest in regions of a neighboring country. Our neighbor brought its unrest and problems to the territory of Georgia as well as armed units, which was followed by the well-known occurrences in Tskhinvali, Abkhazia and the Pankisi Gorge.
It was followed by a huge unrest in Georgia as well – lots of casualties, kidnappings of people, and lots of negative occurrences, which was an influence of a wave brought from the north to Georgia in the 90s.
There is a great unrest across these mountains. On this side of these mountains, even in Kakheti, a big rehabilitation and development process is going on.
Hence, we are in a completely different situation today, than we were in the 90s.
The Georgian State will not allow the unrest, instability, and violence to infect and put in danger, in any form, the citizens of Georgia, peaceful function of our country, and its development.
I want to address our neighbors on the other side of this mountain range – our North Caucasian brothers.
We have our own organized policy towards a unified Caucasus with people of common culture, politics, economics and history.
We are open for any kind of relations with them. We have a visa free travel with the Russian Federation and we welcome the visitors and tourists, who arrive from their country.
But we will not allow any kind of movement of armed forces against the peaceful population as well as a raid of armed persons, because Georgia is a State, which is developing rapidly.
This is why I would like to address each one of them: do not let anyone use you as a blind weapon of provocation.
This unrest and instability that is currently happening on the other side of this mountain range will stay there, and not move towards us.
We have well-trained law enforcement structures, a non-corrupt state apparatus and most importantly political will, to protect our citizens and the results of our peaceful development.