Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who leads the Movement of New Forces party in Ukraine, has been deported to Poland, Ukrainian authorities confirmed shortly after his detention in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s Border Service representative said Mikheil Saakashvili was apprehended in cooperation with the Migration Service and other law enforcement agencies, and returned to the country of his previous stay as he was “illegally residing” in Ukraine.
The Migration Service clarified in its press release that he had “lost ground for further stay in Ukraine” with the court rejection of his asylum appeal, and that Mikheil Saakashvili was returned to Poland through the EU-Ukraine agreement on readmission.
Poland’s Border Service confirmed that he had arrived, and that Warsaw had approved the request of Ukrainian authorities “considering that Saakashvili is a spouse of a citizen of a Member State of the European Union.”
Mikheil Saakashvili, who spoke to Rustavi 2 TV from Warsaw, said the Ukrainian authorities “kidnapped” him through use of force, and “expelled” him from the country on a private plane.
He also slammed the Georgian and the Ukrainian governments, calling President Petro Poroshenko and former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili “oligarchs” and “liars.” “Both of them will be defeated through peaceful means and I will play a decisive role in getting rid of them,” he said.