Page 8 - bne IntelliNews George country report Sept 2017

2.0 Politics
2.1 Stateless ex-Georgian president Saakashvili leaves
Poland for Lithuania
Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has left Poland for Lithuania, Polish radio station Zet reported on August 8. The former head of state is now stateless with both his Georgian and Ukrainian citizenships having been rescinded, the latter in late July.
Saakashvili, who is known for his anti-corruption fights in Georgia and Ukraine, where he served as governor of the Odessa region until November 2016, is now reportedly travelling across Europe, according to Tass news agency. In late July, the Ukrainian immigration service announced that Saakashvili's citizenship had been rescinded because of his failure to reveal the fact that he was wanted in Georgia on charges of abuse of power.
However, the accusations against Saakashvili and the fact that the Georgian judiciary's opening of a case against him had been widely publicised worldwide, indicated that that offered reasoning appeared to be an excuse to conceal the fact that the Ukrainian administration was seeking to remove an inconvenient and often vocal critic. Moreover, there had also been a warming of ties between Tbilisi and Kyiv of late.
Saakashvili has announced that he will fight the decision to rescind his Ukrainian citizenship though, according to lawyers cited by Tass, he will not be able to do so because the order to have his citizenship removed has not been published.
The purpose of Saakashvili's tour of Central and Eastern Europe remains uncertain. Caught by surprise by Kyiv's decision to withdraw his citizenship during a family visit to the US, Saakashvili travelled to Poland for a few days in early August to attend a commemoration of the Warsaw Uprising and said that he was weighing his options.
Petras Austrevicius, a Lithuanian MEP, suggested that his country grant Saakashvili a residency permit on August 6, according to Sputnik news agency, in order to allow him to "create an organisation focusing on political analysis and consultations" in the country.
A staunch opponent of Russian efforts to exert control over former Soviet satellite states, Saakashvili is popular among countries that have felt particularly threatened by Russia, such as the Baltic states and Ukraine.
2.2 Russia pokes Georgia in eye with Putin visit to Abkhazia on war anniversary
Russian President Vladimir Putin riled Georgia on August 8 by travelling to the breakaway region of Abkhazia where he reassured Abkhaz counterpart Raul Khajimba of continued Kremlin military and economic
8 GEORGIA Country Report September 2017 www.intellinews.com