Zelensky says he will bring Ukrainian citizen Saakashvili back to country using 'various means' [VIDEO]
Zelensky said that 'all institutions', including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the embassies operating in Georgia and Ukraine, will deal with the issue of Saakashvili's return. Also, his return will be discussed by the cabinet of ministers of the countries and prime ministers. Photo via Administration of President of Ukraine.
Tweet 
Share
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced at a briefing in Truskavets, Ukraine today that he will work to bring Ukrainian citizen and former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, currently detained in Georgia, back to Ukraine using "various means".
As the president of Ukraine, I am constantly engaged in returning Ukrainian citizens home with the various opportunities that I have, and which were given to me by the authorities. Saakashvili is a citizen of Ukraine, so this concerns him as well", Zelensky said.
He said that 'all institutions', including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the embassies operating in Georgia and Ukraine, will deal with the issue of Saakashvili's return. Also, his return will be discussed by the cabinet of ministers of the countries and prime ministers.
Saakashvili announced on September 28 that he was going to return to Georgia on October 2, the day when the municipal elections were to be held in the country.
Saakashvili wrote on his Facebook page that he arrived in Georgia in the morning of October 1.
In the evening of the same day, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili announced Saakashvili's arrest. The former president was taken to Prison No. 5 in the city of Rustavi, outside Tbilisi.
“The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine will support ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, since he is a citizen of Ukraine”, said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. Saakashvili returned to Georgia in the past few days, though the exact date of his arrival in the country remains unclear; his United National Movement party claims that he had arrived in late September.
The Georgian Interior Ministry says the detention of ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, who is charged with several criminal offences, was planned in advance. Based on the information released by the ministry earlier today, Georgian law enforcers, the State Security Service and the General Prosecutor’s Office carried out a joint operation to detain ex-president Saakashvili.
Overall six criminal charges are filed against recently arrested Georgian ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili who has been convicted to six years of imprisonment in two cases while four other criminal cases are still being heard in Tbilisi City Court.
Former president of Georgian Mikheil Saakashvili, who currently chairs the Executive Committee of the Ukrainian National Reforms Council, has posted a photo of a reserved ticket from Ukraine to Georgia for the evening of the day of municipal elections in Georgia on October 2. Saakashvili, now a citizen of Ukraine, has called on voters to support the opposition and after the closure of polling stations took to the street ‘to defend votes.’
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili says that ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who was detained in Tbilisi on October 1, will be able to leave the country only after he serves his prison sentence.
Georgian ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who was arrested in Tbilisi on October 1, has called for a ‘high-level of mobilisation and a more powerful attack’ for the mayoral election runoffs in 20 of 64 election constituencies on October 30.
Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani has stated earlier today that former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ‘possibly’ violated the Ukrainian legislature by crossing its border illegally. Zalkaliani noted that before Saakashvili became a Ukrainian citizen ‘he was the president and a citizen of Georgia and has been charged in accordance with Georgian legislation.’
Georgian former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who was detained in Tbilisi on October 1 ahead of municipal elections in the country says he is ‘deeply touched’ by the support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili says that the ‘most credible’ account of why ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili returned to Georgia after eight years in political exile was his ‘wish to overthrow the Georgian Dream government.’ However, the ‘operation was as poorly planned as Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) had run the country while in power.’
Georgian former President Mikheil Saakashvili allegedly entered Georgia’s Black Sea port city of Poti via Ukrainian private company UkrFerry’s boat Vilnius ‘hidden in a truck,’ the Georgian Public Broadcaster’s (GPB) weekly analytical program New Week reports. The GPB says Saakashvili set foot in Georgia on September 29 at nine p.m. via boat which departed from the trading port of Chernomorsk in the Odessa region.
'Content of video was unexpected, form was completely unacceptable'
Former first lady of Georgia Sandra Roelofs wrote on Facebook that the content of the video published by Ukrainian MP Liza Yasko, in which she and ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili announced the creation of a 'new family', was unexpected for her and the form was 'completely unacceptable'.
Georgian Parliament Speaker Kakha Kuchava has stated that ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili cannot be a cause of discord between Georgia and Ukraine and called the two countries ‘brotherly nations and strategic partners.’ "We [Georgia and Ukraine] have many plans in terms of cooperation and [we have] a common enemy,” Kuchava said.
Georgian Patriarch Ilia II has requested the country’s third president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is currently serving a prison term in Rustavi Prison No.12, to suspend hunger strike ‘which is not a Christian way of behaviour.’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated that he is ‘personally involved’ in negotiations with the Georgian authorities regarding ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who was arrested in Tbilisi on October 1 and currently is undergoing treatment in Gori Military Hospital following a hunger strike, Ukrainian online media outlet Ukrainska Pravda reports.