Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that the life of the country’s ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is in prison in Georgia, is in danger. He called on the Georgian authorities to transfer Saakashvili, who has Ukrainian nationality, to Kiev.
“At the moment, Russia is killing Ukrainian citizen Mikheil Saakashvili at the hands of Georgian authorities… We have repeatedly called on Tbilisi officials to end this bullying and accept Saakashvili’s return to Ukraine. Our coordination partners with Ukraine have also offered various rescue options. Once again, I urge the Georgian authorities to transfer Ukrainian citizen Mikheil Saakashvili to Ukraine for necessary treatment and care,†Zelenskyy wrote on his Telegram channel.
The Ukrainian President instructed the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to summon the Georgian Ambassador on July 4 and order him to leave the country within 48 hours to hold consultations in Tbilisi on the Mikheil Saakashvili issue.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba confirmed that “there will be a difficult conversation” with the Georgian ambassador and then “he will go to Georgia”.
Ukraine’s foreign minister confirmed that the Ukrainian authorities had decided to take a “decisive but fair step” after seeing Saakashvili’s health condition during his participation in a remote trial on July 3.
“People of Mikheil Saakashvili appeared today. It is impossible to calmly look at him. We are monitoring the situation around him, we are supporting a contract with him, it’s just that everything has reached a boiling point today. today,†explained the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
During a video broadcast on July 3, Mikheil Saakashvili looked unrecognizable and sickly. It is known that in February he weighed 67 kilograms with a height of 195 cm, while before the conclusion in October 2021 Saakashvili’s weight was 116 kg. Lawyers and relatives of Saakashvili have long been talking about a sharp deterioration in his state of health and are trying to secure his early release in order to continue his treatment abroad. However, the Georgian court did not grant Saakashvili’s request to suspend Saakashvili’s sentence, after which his lawyers appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg.
A protest action demanding the release of Mikheil Saakashvili at the clinic where he is being held. July 4, 2023
The ECHR also did not satisfy the request to transfer the former Georgian president to Warsaw for treatment and ordered that he be transferred to another medical establishment in the country.
Volodymyr Zelensyy’s stance on Saakashvili has been called “insulting” to the ruling Georgian Dream party, but they said they don’t want to discuss the issue because Georgian authorities want to maintain “at least one-sided friendship with Ukraine”.
“This decision of the Ukrainian president will not cast a shadow or weaken the support of Ukrainians in Georgia,” said Archil Talakvadze, one of the leaders of Georgia’s ruling party.
At the same time, the chairman of the “Georgian Dream” Irakli Kobakhidze said that Saakashvili was not sick. According to Kobakhidze, the ex-president deliberately took low-calorie food with the aim of early release. The weight loss was necessary for Saakashvili to mimic the disease, the politician explained.
The Georgian opposition, recalling that Saakashvili looks like a “prisoner of Auschwitz” on the images received, stressed that such treatment of political opponents is typical of backward countries. Some of the opponents also criticize Zelenskyy’s position, saying that “it was not worth spoiling relations because of Saakashvili.”
The ex-president of Georgia himself issued a statement on July 4 in which he thanked the president of Ukraine, who, in his own words, showed the “standard of humanity” when, in the conditions of a full-scale war and preparations for the NATO Summit, he “found time†for Saakashvili. The former Georgian president further notes that he “remains a proud citizen of a heroic country” and expects “good news” from the front in the coming days.
Saakashvili also thanks other Ukrainian politicians for their support: Andrii Yermak, Mikhail Podolyak and Dmitry Kuleba.
Recall that Mikheil Saakashvili, who was wanted, arrived in Georgia illegally on September 29, 2021 and was arrested on October 1. Earlier, a Tbilisi court convicted him in absentia of abuse of power. Saakashvili claims that all charges against him are politically motivated and that he is a “prisoner of Putin”.
Meanwhile, on July 3, Ukraine’s charge d’affaires in Georgia, Oleksandr Shulga, was summoned to the Georgian Foreign Ministry for clarification. Recall that on July 1, the Ukrainian President imposed sanctions on the Georgian airline Georgian Airways for a period of ten years due to the resumption of flights with Russia. Personal sanctions were also introduced against the director of this airline, Tamaz Gaiashvili.
Relations between Kiev and Tbilisi have soured since the start of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year. This happened, in particular, after Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili announced on February 25, 2022 that despite the fact that Georgia would join all international sanctions against the Russian Federation, he would not impose any sanctions individual against Russia. This caused a negative reaction in Kiev and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recalled the Ukrainian ambassador from Georgia. A year and a half later, Kyiv has still not appointed a new ambassador to Georgia.
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