Saakashvili stuck on train in Ukraine bid

A train that former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili wants to take into Ukraine, despite the revocation of his citizenship, has been held at a station in Poland.

Mr Saakashvili, who later became governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region, is in a high-visibility campaign to regain the Ukrainian citizenship he was stripped of in the summer.

He boarded the train that was to travel to the Ukrainian city of Lviv in Przemysl after abandoning a plan to cross the border by car.

But an announcement on the train’s public address system said it would be held in the station until “a person without the right to enter Ukrainian territory” left.

Mr Saakashvili said that authorities were effectively holding hundreds of passengers. He said: “Can you imagine what kind of idiots we’re dealing with?”

Mr Saakashvili has been stateless since Ukraine’s president revoked his citizenship. He was also stripped of his Georgian passport.