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PRZEMYSL, Poland: Stateless former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili says he is determined to return to Ukraine, to reclaim the Ukrainian citizenship which has been stripped from him, although in doing so he runs the risk of being arrested at Tbilisi’s request.
The 49-year-old firebrand says he intends to show up on Poland’s Korczowa border crossing point with Ukraine yesterday around noon, where Ukrainian authorities are likely to refuse him entry.
The charismatic Saakashvili is credited with pushing through pro-Western reforms in his native Georgia which he led from 2004 to 2013.
He is currently wanted in his homeland for alleged abuse of power – something he denies – during a tumultuous nine years as president that saw him fight and lose a brief war against Russia in 2008. He left in disgrace for Ukraine in 2015 to work for the country’s pro-Western authorities as governor of the key Odessa region on the Black Sea.
But he quit in November 2016 amid a dramatic falling out with Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, who stripped him of his Ukrainian citizenship in July while he was out of the country. Now, Saakashvili wants to return to challenge that decision in court and to get back into politics.
“I know their (Ukrainian authorities) scenario,” he told reporters in the Polish capital Warsaw. “They are trying to send some young girls to welcome me with smiles and with strong refusal.
“I want to tell these girls and other border guards: Please don’t comply with illegal orders. Act as the law provides. And the law clearly says... we are on the right side of the law.”
Speaking to the BBC, spokesman for the Ukrainian border service Oleg Slobodyan suggested Saakashvili would be denied entry on the grounds that as a stateless person who lacks the required documents. Invalid documents must be confiscated and their bearers denied entry, border guards said.
Saakashvili showed his Ukrainian passport to reporters in Warsaw, adding that he would present it to Ukrainian border guards along with ‘other legal documents.’ — AFP