Ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili issued a statement stating that Russians fleeing to Georgia from mobilization should be constantly "reminded that they are occupiers." At the same time, he refused to criticize the Georgian authorities for allowing such men into the country.
“The mass exodus of Russian conscripts to Georgia creates a great demographic danger for this small country, as well as serious security problems. Society is very negative. On the other hand, I will not even indiscriminately condemn the decision of the Georgian authorities to let them through, since the more these men are in Georgia, the fewer Ukrainians will die. And this is important for Georgia.
At the same time, Georgian civil society must constantly remind new arrivals that they are occupiers and strictly monitor that they do not buy Georgian passports in order to deprive them of the opportunity to interfere in Georgia's internal politics. We also need to create incentives all the time so that they travel to Turkey and other countries as much as possible.”
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, from September 17 to 26, about 78 thousand citizens of the Russian Federation entered Georgia, and more than 62 thousand left.