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‘Three-ring circus’: Kremlin derides Saakashvili’s ‘return to Georgia’

Dmitry Peskov also noted that the Kremlin currently saw no signs of destabilization in Georgia with regard to Saakashvili's activities

MOSCOW, October 1. /TASS/. The movement and whereabouts of Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgia’s ex-president and former governor of the Ukrainian city of Odessa, is none of the Kremlin's business, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

"Listen, Saakashvili always is a three-ring circus," he said, commenting on reports claiming that the former president had returned to Georgia.

"The important thing is to make sure that this three-ring circus poses no danger to the citizens of countries where this man is situated," Peskov added. "Thank God, it's none of our business," he noted.

The Russian presidential spokesman also said that the Kremlin currently saw no signs of destabilization in Georgia with regard to Saakashvili's activities.

The former Georgian president wrote on Facebook earlier on Friday that he had returned to his native country after spending eight years overseas. The Georgian authorities have repeatedly said Saakashvili would be arrested upon arrival. Georgia's Interior Ministry said that the ex-president had not crossed the country's border. Head of Georgia's ruling party Irakli Kobakhidze also denied reports of Saakashvili's arrival.

Saakashvili served as Georgia's president between January 2004 and November 2013. He left the country several days before his presidential term expired in 2013. Right after that, four criminal cases were opened against him and verdicts have now been announced in two of them. In January 2018, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced Saakashvili in absentia to three years behind bars in the 2006 murder case of United Bank of Georgia staff member Sandro Girgvliani. In June 2018, a court handed the ex-president a six-year prison sentence in the 2005 beating case of parliament member Valery Gelashvili.