Georgia denies reports on selling of personal files of reserve officers to Russia

The Georgian Ministry of Defence has described the reports on the selling of the personal files of reserve officers to the special services of the Russian Federation as "a lie".

The agency issued a statement saying that after the dismissal of military servicemen from the defence forces, their personal files are not kept in the material form in the structural units of the Ministry of Defence or Defence Forces of Georgia. The agency says the personal files are sent to the relevant structures of the municipalities, Interpress News reported on August 9. 

"We would like to respond to the absurd and purposefully spread disinformation against the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Forces of Georgia, which is aimed at deceiving the public, discrediting government agencies and promoting narrow partisan interests. In particular, the Main Channel aired a TV story claiming that the Ministry of Defence of Georgia allegedly sold the personal files of reserve officers to the special services of the Russian Federation. Later the National Movement and its satellite parties, based on the mentioned disinformation, tried to earn political points. The said information is false and no part of it is true," the ministry stressed.

"In particular, after the dismissal of military servicemen from the defence forces, their personal files are not kept in the material form in the structural units of the Ministry of Defence or Defence Forces of Georgia. The agency says the personal files are sent to the relevant structures of the municipalities," it added.

According to the ministry, "the personal file of Mikheil Kamkhadze was sent from the Ministry of Defence to the relevant district commissariat and is kept there. In this way, it is impossible for reserve officers' personal files to leak from any agency. The relevant service will establish whether the documents shown in the media footage were actually the personal file of the military officer and how they were found in Ukraine".

It should be noted that the Main Channel requested information from the Ministry of Defence, however, the author of the TV story and the National ­Movement did not wait for the verified and accurate information to be provided by the Ministry within the deadlines set by the law and chose to spread disinformation, which indicates that they wanted to achieve narrow partisan goals at the expense of the Georgian military. It is a pity that the Main Channel and the National ­Movement continue their targeted disinformation campaign against the Ministry of Defence and Defence Forces of Georgia.

"We call on media outlets and political leaders to refrain from spreading unverified information. Such misinformation only creates tension in the society, whereas there is no basis for it," the Ministry of Defence says in its statement.

The Main Channel reported that the personal case of a Georgian officer was obtained by the Russian special services. According to the TV company, the occupation regime has full access to Mikheil Kamkhadze's data, which should have been kept in the Ministry of Defence.