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Ukrainian interior minister rules out Saakashvili’s return

State Border Service Speaker Oleg Slobodyan, in turn, said that border guards would not allow Saakashvili to enter Ukraine on April 1, the day after the presidential vote

Mikhail Saakashvili Maxim Nikitin/TASS

Mikhail Saakashvili

© Maxim Nikitin/TASS

KIEV, March 21. /TASS/. Former Georgian President and former Governor of Ukraine’s Odessa Region Mikhail Saakashvili will not return to Ukraine after the first round of the presidential election scheduled to take place on March 31, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on TV.

Ukrainian State Border Service Speaker Oleg Slobodyan, in turn, said that border guards would not allow Saakashvili to enter Ukraine the day after the presidential election. "This individual is not a Ukrainian citizen and there is no reason for him to enter Ukraine until 2021," Slobodyan said.

Saakashvili told a Ukrainian TV channel earlier that he would take a flight to Kiev on April 1 and even showed an e-ticket. He was confident that incumbent Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko would not make it into the runoff election "so not a single border guard will fulfill his order" to prevent Saakashvili from entering Ukraine.

Mikhail Saakashvili served two terms as Georgia’s president, from January 2004 to November 2007 and from January 2008 to mid-November 2013. In May 2015, Saakashvili was granted Ukrainian citizenship, which resulted in his Georgian citizenship being terminated by the Georgian president’s decision. He then served as Odessa Regional Governor, but later stepped down. In July 2017, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko stripped him of his Ukrainian citizenship, and in February 2018, the Ukrainian authorities expelled him to Poland.

The Ukrainian State Border Service banned Saakashvili from entering the country until 2021. However, he said he would never stop trying to return to Ukraine.

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Ukraine Mikhail Saakashvili

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