US Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan responds to the date of the 100th anniversary of the Soviet occupation.

“Today marks 100 years since the tragic day troops sent by the Kremlin occupied independent Georgia in 1921.

The invasion by Soviet troops was in flagrant violation of a non-aggression pact that the Tbilisi government had signed in Moscow less than a year earlier.

To commemorate that sad day, the U.S. Embassy would like to present a collective reading by my colleagues of “25 February,” a poem by Kolau Nadiradze.

The poem was published in 1985, but it speaks of the tragedy of the day when Georgians had their independence stolen from them by Moscow, and saw their country subsumed into the Soviet Union.

The poem symbolizes with heartbreaking clarity the difficulties of living under Kremlin rule during the Soviet period for the proud people of Georgia.

Today, more than ever, we are reminded of how important a united Georgia is in the face of Russian aggression” – said Ambassador Kelly Degnan.