Giorgi Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Especially for Vestnik Kavkaza
For the first time in the last 23 years, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Tbilisi, Basil Tsybenko, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for explanations regarding the appointment of ex-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili as the head of the International Advisory Council on Reform and a freelance adviser to the President of Ukraine.
Against the former president, the Georgian prosecutor's office has filed four criminal cases on charges of abuse of office and embezzlement. Altogether, Saakashvili is threatened with up to 30 years in prison in his home country. He is considered a "state criminal", but this time he has been appointed to a high position in a country connected with Georgia by an unprecedented agreement "Of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance." Of course, from the diplomatic point of view, this is an unfriendly act.
Coming after talking to reporters, Vasilyi Tsybenko was quite verbose and made it clear that he also has questions for the Georgian side. For example, he mentioned the "numerous trips of Mikheil Saakashvili around the world." Indeed, the former president has lived in the United States (at least, lived there before being appointed to high office in Kiev) and often in Europe. But somehow, the Georgian authorities have no complaints against other states that also do not pay attention to the criminal cases against Saakashvili. Tbilisi announced that the ex-president is wanted, but no one thinks to detain the former president, especially to extradite him to his homeland. Moreover, according to a recent recognition of foreign minister Tamara Beruchashvili, the Georgian Foreign Ministry has not even annulled the diplomatic passport of Mikhail Saakashvili. Against this background, as the Ambassador of Ukraine hinted, claims that it is only Ukraine fault, seem out of place. Eventually, the Court has not yet found Saakashvili guilty, and Ukraine, according to the diplomat, "is an independent state and independently decides to meet its national interests."
Mr. Tsybenko did not explain how and why the appointment of Saakashvili and many of his associates to high positions is in the interests of Ukraine. According to local experts, those Ukrainian authorities are trying to enlist the support of those circles in the West who have always supported and support Saakashvili as a "reformer in the post-Soviet space," linking his name not only to the modernization of Georgia, but also to a series of "colored revolutions" in the post-Soviet space.
For Saakashvili himself, high office in Kiev and the proximity to the Ukrainian authorities is an opportunity to return influence at home and a chance to strengthen his badly battered team, represented in Parliament in the form of the former ruling party "United National Movement" (UNM). Many of its leaders are already working in Kiev. The latest appointee is an MP from UNM, a former Deputy Prosecutor General of Georgia, David Sakvarelidze. He has taken up a similar position in Ukraine, abandoning his parliamentary seat and even his Georgian citizenship.
Former Interior Minister Ekaterine Zghuladze began reformation of traffic patrol and creation of patrol police when she received the post of deputy minister of interior affairs of Ukraine. Other members of the same team "advise" Ukrainian colleagues on topics of reforming the Ministry of Justice, service registry, criminal police and so on. The Ministry of Health of Ukraine is headed by ex-Minister of Health of Georgia Alexander Kvitashvili. At the same time, hundreds of retired Georgian soldiers (many of them Saakashvili knows by name since the days of the conflict over South Ossetia) are fighting in the Donbas in the composition of the Ukrainian army.
The Georgian authorities suspect that Saakashvili and his team are preparing a foothold in Ukraine for a subsequent overthrow in Georgia and the organization of a new revolution. The ex-president said recently: "Changing the current power by ordinary democratic procedures, that is, through elections, will not succeed!" Against the background of such statements, official Tbilisi could not respond to the decision of Kiev, we are talking about preventing a new revolution, for which, in the opinion of the current government, their opponents are preparing almost openly, and the Ukrainian authorities are wittingly or unwittingly helping them with this.
Former Interior Minister Alexander Chikaidze shortly before retirement warned: "Saakashvili is creating in Kiev a "Sonderkommando", and his "fifth column" in Georgia is already buying tyres to burn them in the central streets of Tbilisi during the "Georgian Maidan." However, the government of Irakli Garibashvili, conducting a pro-Western course, does not want to spoil relations with Ukraine as an ally of the West and the largest trading partner of Georgia. Therefore, high-ranking Georgian officials have refrained from harsh statements, limiting comments to the style of "unpleasant but tolerable" and the informal curator of the government, Bidzina Ivanishvili, publicly advised "not to escalate emotions and to understand the decision of the Ukrainian leadership - with the tragic situation in which now turned out to be a friendly country."
