Zelensky on jailed Mikheil Saakashvili’s plight: ‘Russia is using the Georgian government to kill a Ukrainian national’
Volodymyr Zelensky has responded to the courtroom photos of Mikheil Saakashvili from a hearing attended by Georgia’s jailed ex-president earlier today. In the stills, the politician looks dangerously emaciated.
“Right now, Russia is using the Georgian government to kill a Ukrainian national,” Zelensky remarked. The president also said that he’s tasked Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba with summoning the Georgian ambassador in Kyiv to express the Ukrainian government’s sharp protest against Georgia’s treatment of Saakashvili, a Ukrainian national.
Kyiv is once again demanding Saakashvili’s return to Ukraine for medical treatment and necessary care. Zelensky is urging Ukraine’s partner countries not to ignore the situation and help “save this man.”
The jailed politician’s brother David Saakashvili says that Georgia’s former president is close to death and may have been poisoned while in custody.
Saakashvili has been in prison since the fall of 2021. In February 2023, it was reported that he weighed only 67 kilograms (147.7 pounds), compared to 116 kilograms (255.7 pounds) he weighed before arrest, given a height of 195 centimeters (6 feet 4 inches).
