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Putin dubs Ukrainian top officials’ quarrel at national council’s meeting as tragicomedy

On December 14, at a meeting of the National Reform Council reform Avakov and Saakashvili had a quarrel

© Mikhail Klimentyev/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS

MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. A quarrel of Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and Odessa Governor Mikhail Saakashvili is laughable, Russian President Vladimir Putin told TV host Vladimir Solovyov in the World Order documentary, the excerpt of which the anchor man posted on Instagram on Saturday.

"The fact that they were arguing in Russian is good," Putin said. "Better than in Georgian or Ossetian. But it is laughable, a sort of a tragicomedy."

On December 14, at a meeting of the National Reform Council reform Avakov and Saakashvili had a quarrel. The verbal altercation occurred during a dispute on the issue of privatization of the Odessa Portside Plant. A glass of water thrown by Avakov at Saakashvili ended the dispute. The quarrel was accompanied by obscene words.

On December 17, Putin said at a keynote annual news conference that the appointment of Michael Saakashvili to position of Odessa’s governor had been a "spit in the Ukrainian people.".

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