TBILISI, October 2. /TASS/. Relations between Georgia and Ukraine would not be hampered following the arrest of Mikhail Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, who holds a passport of a Ukrainian national, Kakhaber Kuchava, the speaker of the Georgian Parliament, said on Saturday.

"Relations between Georgia and Ukraine would not be hampered because an ex-president [of Georgia] and a current national of Ukraine Mikhail Saakashvili was detained by Georgian authorities," Kuchava stated.

"Nobody and nothing can put on the verge our brotherly relations between Ukraine and Georgia, left alone the arrest of a single person [Saakashvili]," the senior Georgian lawmaker stated.

The former Georgian president wrote on Facebook account on October 1 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.

Saakashvili served as Georgia's president between January 2004 and November 2013. He left his 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.