The lawyer complained about the refusal to access Ukrainians at the Georgian checkpoint.

Lawyer Darya Samodurova has been unable to obtain a pass for two months to meet with her clients, citizens of Ukraine, who are in the basement at the "Dariali" checkpoint. The Ministry of Internal Affairs does not provide written responses to her requests, and the court has not decided whether to accept her lawsuit against the agency.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot", at least 19 citizens of Ukraine have been locked in the basement at the Georgian checkpoint "Dariali" for about a year without access to medical assistance and essential supplies, said lawyer Darya Samodurova in June.

Lawyer Darya Samodurova stated that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia is grossly interfering with her legal activities and obstructing her professional duties. According to her, she has been trying to obtain a special pass for two months to visit her clients, who have been held in the basement of the "Dariali" checkpoint on the border of Georgia and Russia for a year. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, she claims, deliberately does not provide written responses to requests, and the court has been deliberating for two weeks on whether to accept her lawsuit against the agency, writes Paper Kartuli.

According to her, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is trying to persuade her clients to agree to a free state lawyer, but they refuse. When the Ukrainians asked why their lawyer had not come, representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said that she had not managed to arrange a pass and could not come.

"I couldn't believe my ears. No one has ever interfered so openly and shamelessly in my legal activities. Colleagues, our profession is in danger! I made this fact public precisely so that this would not happen again. Leaving this without a reaction is absolutely unacceptable," writes Samodurova on her Facebook page.

It was known in 2025 about the prolonged detention of Ukrainian citizens deported from the Russian Federation at the border with Georgia. In early August, five citizens of Ukraine declared a hunger strike at the Georgian checkpoint, demanding access to the Ukrainian consul, the opportunity to leave Georgia, or to file a petition for international protection. After meeting with the Ukrainian consul, they ended their hunger strike. At the end of August, it became known that more than 60 Ukrainians, after a forced prolonged stay at the checkpoint, were able to return home.

"Caucasian Knot" also reported that in December 2023, a group of Ukrainian citizens, mostly former prisoners, waited a long time for permission to enter Georgia from Russia. Some of them spent about a month at the checkpoint. According to them, they were only assisted by volunteers.

In October 2023, seven citizens of Ukraine were forced to spend more than two weeks in the buffer zone at the Russian-Georgian border. Previously, they had served sentences in Kherson colonies, and after their release, they were taken to a deportation center in Volgograd and issued entry bans to Russia. While the Georgian authorities refused to let them into the country, volunteers provided the Ukrainians with food and essential items.

At the end of November of the same year, it became known that the Georgian authorities again refused to let former Ukrainian prisoners into the country. Volunteers managed to obtain passes for eight Ukrainians, but another eight people, who by that time had already spent more than two weeks at the checkpoint, were left waiting at the border.