Saakashvili Uses Iron Hand in Ukraine
Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president and new Governor of Odessa has started a wave of radical measures including the detainment of several officials. The region, which is of vital economic importance to the Ukrainian government, is embroiled by rampant corruption and Saakashvili has already openly punished the Odessa Military Commissioner for allegedly taking bribes.
“The Military Commissioner of the Odessa district and his subordinates have been detained. They are accused of taking bribes from recruits,” stated Saakashvili’s Facebook page.
The Georgian revolutionary claims the methods used in Ukraine resembles the anti-corruption activities his team widely utilized in Georgia a decade ago. He adds that criminals and corrupt officials must be punished or the problem will only multiply.
Contrarily, Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is known to have been openly sounding out Vladimir Putin’s ideas, has declared abruptly that Saakashvili, along with Ukrainian military pilot Nadezhda Savchenko, who is currently in Russian custody on charges of killing Russian journalists in Luhansk, should be shot.
“Are you going to shell Donbas? We will do the same in Kiev. You killed Mozgavoy (head of separatists in Luhansk district, killed in May 2015) and we will shoot all your governors, starting with Saakashvili,” the provocative Russian politician said.
At the same time, Saakashvili, despite apparently losing his Georgian citizenship and facing apparent Russian threats, has not ruled out a return to Georgia for next year’s elections. Indeed, he has compared Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili to a student with an inferiority complex.
Saakashvili believes what he is doing in Ukraine will benefit not only Ukraine but also Georgia in the long run.
“There are several reasons for the poor state of Georgia’s economy, but the main reason is Ivanishvili. He wanted to stop our big projects and his team actually destroyed many of them. So, we are dealing with both Ivanishvili’s personal grudge and his inferiority complex,” Saakashvili said.
The ex-president spoke about his new post in Ukraine and claimed it could not be considered a long-term arrangement.
The Georgian Prosecutor’s Office, which has been engaged in Saakashvili’s prosecution for the last two years, has declared that the ex-president’s extradition from Ukraine is no longer possible as he has received Ukrainian citizenship.
“Such a guarantee exists in almost every country, including Georgia. Legally, once Mikheil Saakashvili became a Ukrainian citizen, the country was no longer legally able to force his extradition from another country,” Irakli Shotadze, First Deputy Chief Prosecutor, said.