On 25 and 26 September 2018, UNESCO, the Georgian National Commission for UNESCO and the Ministry of Defense of Georgia organized a training course on the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict in Tbilisi. The workshop brought together over 20 senior representatives – civilian and military – of the Ministry of Defense and the Great Mtskheta Archeological State Museum. The participants discussed, among other subjects, the adoption of safeguarding measures against the foreseeable effects of armed conflict, necessary precautions to protect cultural sites during military operations, and ways to improve civil-military cooperation in times of emergency. International and local experts representing the Blue Shield International, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the U.S. and Georgian Committees of the Blue Shield facilitated the training course.

During the training course, UNESCO and National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia placed the distinctive emblem of enhanced protection on the Historical Monuments of Mtshketa, a Georgian World Heritage site, which was inscribed on the International List of Cultural Property under Enhanced Protection in 2016.