The State Security Service of Georgia (SSSG) said on August 19 that a Georgian citizen who was illegally detained near the village of Perevi in Sachkhere municipality on August 17 was released from custody in the occupied region and returned to Tbilisi-controlled territory.
The SSSG statement did not mention Russian occupation forces or the Tskhinvali occupation line, where the illegal detention presumably took place.
It also did not name the person, while the Tskhinvali-based Res news agency identified him as Lasha Gulitashvili, born in 1986, saying he had been detained by “South Ossetian border guards” for “illegally crossing the state border.” The agency said he was subsequently “expelled” and “fined.”
The SSSG said the “hotline” and “all relevant instruments” available to the central government were activated to secure his release. “The central government, together with international partners, continues its active efforts to secure the release of all Georgian citizens being held in illegal detention in the occupied territories,” the SSSG added.
According to the SSSG’s latest annual report, 34 cases of illegal detention were recorded around the occupied Tskhinvali region in 2025, while 40 cases were recorded in Abkhazia.
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