(Tbilisi) Imprisoned Georgian ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s victory against Russia was “inevitable” and that it would transform the region, in an interview with AFP written from his place of detention.
“Ukraine’s inevitable victory will completely change the situation in Georgia and the region,” Saakashvili told AFP in written notes sent through his lawyer.
According to the now imprisoned former president, known for his resolutely pro-Western positions and who has also held official functions in Ukraine, Westerners must “prepare” for the disintegration of Russia.
Mr. Saakashvili, 55, was arrested a year ago on his return to Georgia from a long exile abroad, and imprisoned following a conviction for “abuse of power” that he dismiss as political.
Doctors said his life was in danger due to serious illnesses he has suffered since his incarceration, during which he was allegedly poisoned with heavy metals. His health has also deteriorated due to a 50-day hunger strike aimed at denouncing his conditions of detention.
The man who led Georgia from 2008 to 2013 is now in hospital and appeared very weak during recent videoconference appearances for court hearings.
Because of his setbacks with the new Georgian authorities, whom he accuses of links with Russia, Mr. Saakashvili had had his Georgian nationality withdrawn and had acquired the nationality of Ukraine, where he had studied at the soviet era.
“Ukraine has become for good the superpower of the region and, together with Poland, it determines everything in the region, including with regard to Georgia”, continues the ex-president in these notes written by a trembling hand.
A small ex-Soviet republic in the Caucasus, Georgia was recently shaken by massive pro-European demonstrations against a law deemed draconian and inspired by the practices of the Kremlin on “foreign agents”, which the government wanted to pass.
Faced with mobilization, the power was forced to back down by canceling the law.
The “disintegration” of Russia
“In Georgia, the situation will be fundamentally changed even before Ukraine’s final victory,” said Mikheil Saakashvili.
These demonstrations marked the culmination of anger at what is perceived by part of Georgian society as a backsliding on democracy, which jeopardizes the ambition to integrate the EU and NATO.
The ruling Georgian Dream party and oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia and is seen by his critics as the one pulling the strings of government, are suspected of collusion with the Kremlin.
“In Georgia, everything is crystal clear: the people are united, we are a European nation with a Russian government,” Saakashvili slices.
“No autocrat can ever tame the generation that grew up in a free Georgia,” he adds.
The ex-president claims that the Georgian government “refuses on orders from Moscow to let (him) go out for medical treatment abroad”.
Once jovial and portly, Mr. Saakashvili, who weighed 115 kg, has lost more than 50 kg since his detention. He appeared with sunken cheeks and shaking hands in a recent video during a court hearing.
“My weight has dropped to a level that doctors say can lead to multiple organ failure at any time,” Saakashvili said.
According to the concilium of doctors set up by the Georgian human rights ombudsman, the country’s medical system has “exhausted all available means” to treat him.
Mikheil Saakashvili was at the head of Georgia during the intervention of the Russian army in this country in the summer of 2008. Part of the Georgian territory is today under the control of pro-Russian separatists supported by Moscow.
Today, however, according to Saakashvili, “the West has woken up and united against Putin’s war on Ukraine”.
“The West must accept the disintegration of the Russian Federation and prepare for it,” he said.