Newly stateless, ex-Georgian President and ex-Odesa Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili can’t hide his resentment toward Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who stripped him of citizenship.
The State Migration Service of Ukraine released a statement on July 26 confirming the removal of his Ukrainian citizenship.
Saakashvili, who is now staying with relatives in New York and speaking to Ukrainian and international media, promises he won’t give up without a fight.
Two hours of threats
Saakashvili says he knew he was in trouble when he met with Poroshenko at the Congress of the European People’s Party in Malta in March.
“He told me I had to stop criticizing and rocking Ukraine, carrying out (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s plan…. I laughed at him to his face,” Saakashvili said in an interview to Ukrainska Pravda on July 29. “He asked why I didn’t criticize, for example, (Yulia) Tymoshenko or (Arsen) Avakov? He asked why I focused on him.”
Saakashvili referred to the alleged meeting with Poroshenko as “two hours of threats and blackmail,” during which Poroshenko told him to become a “normal Ukrainian politician.”
“I think the last straw was when I started to bring people to my headquarters for joint efforts. He got frightened. […] If he hadn’t been afraid of me, he would have revoked my citizenship while I was in Kyiv in accordance with legal procedure, not secretly,” he said.
News from Georgia
A little over a week before the official announcement regarding the suspension of Saakashvili’s Ukrainian citizenship, Poroshenko traveled to Georgia to attend a July 19 business forum in Tbilisi.
Saakashvili claims that Poroshenko had a meeting with former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire oligarch, who led the coalition to oust him from power in Georgia in 2013.
“I don’t know what they were talking about, but knowing the oligarch Ivanishvili’s obsession with me and Poroshenko’s reaction to me, it’s clear that they weren’t talking about the weather.”
Coincidentally, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine received materials from Georgian officials showing the data on Saakashvili’s citizenship application had been falsified.
Old regime
In an interview with Foreign Policy on June 28, Saakashvili argues that Poroshenko’s decision to deprive him of citizenship reveals authoritarian tendencies.
“It’s not about me. Right now, Poroshenko basically said he can do anything to keep the influence of his corrupt circle,” Saakashvili said. “If he is capable of doing such illegal things against figures like me who are widely known in the world, some unknown Ukrainians can easily suffer.”
Saakashvili accused Poroshenko not only of reverting to the Soviet-era practice of cracking down on dissidents, but also of following his predecessor Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted from Ukraine in 2014, and once blacklisted Saakashvili from entering Ukraine.
Михайло Саакашвілі – мій друг зі студентських років. Я пам’ятаю його як вольову та рішучу людину, і маю підставу йому довіряти.
— Петро Порошенко (@poroshenko) May 30, 2015
“Mikhail Saakashvili is my friend from student years. I remember him as strong-willed and decisive person and I have reasons to trust him,” – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on his Twitter on May 30, 2015, when he granted a Ukrainian passport to former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has longtime ties with Ukraine.
Poroshenko’s business motivation
“My biggest mistake was that from the beginning, I incorrectly understood Poroshenko’s motivation. In fact, it’s very simple – to earn money,” Saakashvili reflects. “This person remained a banal huckster. I worked in his administration and know than most of the time at the workplace he solves his business issues.”
He added that investment banker Makar Pasenyuk and Poroshenko partners Ihor Kononenko, Oleh Hladkovsky and Alexander Hranovsky can be frequently seen in the Presidential Administration.
Plans to return
Saakashvili learned about his expulsion from Ukraine from mass media while he was visiting his relatives in upstate New York, his spokesperson Zoé Reyners told Eurasianet.org.
His U.S. visa allows him to stay in the country until the end of this year, she added.
Lithuanian parliamentarians suggested granting Lithuanian citizenship to him. And his marriage to a Dutch woman gives him the right to receive Netherlands citizenship. But he says he won’t do that. Neither will he seek asylum abroad, he told Foreign Policy.
Saakashvili plans to find a way to return to Ukraine. At the moment, he is mobilizing people around his headquarters for joint efforts to hold anti-government meetings nationwide in the fall.
“I have a goal,” he told Ukrainska Pravda. “I have obligations to the Ukrainian people.”
