Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia has released an official statement regarding the decision of the Tskhinvali puppet regime to change the toponyms in the occupied regions.
`Russian occupants and the occupation regimes of Sokhumi and Tskhinvali claim that they are substituting historical Georgian toponyms by the allegedly prehistoric non-Georgian names. The aim behind is obvious: to eliminate the trace of Georgian residence on the occupied territories of Georgia. There are plans to remove 200 Georgian names from the administrative map and introduce Ossetian and Russian toponyms instead.
Change of Georgian toponyms is a logical follow-up to the ethnic cleansing carried out by Russia on the occupied territories of Georgia. Undertaking such actions, Russia intends to deprive hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons of the grounds to return to their homes of origin, erase the evidence of ethnic cleansing and create the illusion of so-called new reality.
The policy pursued by the Russian Federation against Georgia provides yet another proof that there is hardly any base act that the Kremlin and its occupation regimes would avoid to commit,` the statement says.
