Georgia announced Kyiv’s desire to bring Saakashvili to power to start a war

In Ukraine, the forces that would like to see former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who was convicted in several criminal cases, in power in Georgia have great influence, said Mikheil Sarjveladze, Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights and Civil Integration of the Georgian Parliament. In his opinion, in Kyiv they are trying to involve the republic in the war in this way.

“Everything is clear where all this comes from and who has what interest. Today, the Ukrainian government has a very large influence on the political force that wants to see Mikheil Saakashvili in power in Georgia, just so that he starts a war,” stated Sarjveladze on the air of the Imedi television company (quote from Sputnik Georgia).

According to the deputy, the topic of the former Georgian leader had a negative impact on the good relations between the two countries; they were “sacrificed to support Saakashvili.”

On July 4, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, on behalf of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, expressed a strong protest to the Georgian ambassador over the situation around Saakashvili and called on the Georgian authorities to transfer the former president of the country to Kiev for further treatment. Georgian Foreign Ministry in response named Kyiv’s demand for interference in internal affairs.

Before this, in February, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said that the Ukrainian authorities were not stopping their attempts to drag the republic into the conflict in Ukraine and open a “second front” in the country. But the prime minister assured that Georgia managed to avoid being drawn into the conflict.

Saakashvili, who served as president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, faces several criminal cases in the country, in two of which he was sentenced to a total of nine years in prison. The politician was detained in Georgia on October 1, 2021. Initially, he was in prison in the city of Rustavi, and in May 2022 he was transferred to a Tbilisi clinic for a medical examination. Doctors discovered he had a spinal injury; the ex-president of Georgia required surgery.