TBILISI, May 20. /TASS/. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has announced that she declared a boycott and will never use Georgian Airways after the air carrier started to operate flights to Russia, she told a briefing on Saturday.

"For myself, I declare a boycott of Airzena (Georgian Airways - TASS) and I urge you to join in with it. It is a company that uses the state to enrich itself. The same happened under the previous government. It continued during the Covid [pandemic] and now they want to take advantage of the new reality (the resumption of flights to Russia - TASS), which is unacceptable to most of our population," Zourabichvili said.

On May 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on lifting visa requirements for citizens of Georgia from May 15. In another decree, the president canceled the ban on flights to Georgia operated by Russian air carriers and on selling tours to the country.

On Friday, an Azimuth flight landed at Tbilisi International Airport. It was the first Moscow-Tbilisi flight in the past four years. Georgia’s flag carrier, Georgian Airways, launched direct flights on Saturday. Russian air carrier Red Wings will start flying to Georgia in June.