Georgia accuses Ukraine of trying to hinder country's path to EU

Georgian Parliament Vice-Speaker Gia Volsky has said the Ukrainian authorities have made an unjust and unreasonable decision to send the Georgian ambassador back home because of the situation around the republic's former president Mikheil Saakashvili.

Volsky called such steps disappointing.

"Those in Ukraine know very well what strong political, legal and humanitarian assistance they have received from Georgia at all critical moments. The change of power in Georgia is a special topic for Ukraine, and they are not hiding it now there is an attempt to somehow not give [EU candidate] status to Georgia so that it causes tension in society and a new wave of destabilisation rises," the Georgian First Channel quotes Volsky as saying.

He also added that the Ukrainian leadership treats the Georgian authorities this way because they have refused to engage in the Ukrainian conflict and to send volunteers to Kyiv in an organised manner.

Saakashvili secretly returned home in mid-autumn 2021, despite the existence of several criminal cases against him. As a result, the former Georgian president was arrested and imprisoned. Saakashvili himself called his detention politicized and declared a hunger strike. Subsequently, the ex-president's health seriously deteriorated and in May 2022, he was transferred from prison to a hospital in the capital for medical examinations.

Amidst the politician's condition, various European countries and Ukraine, of which he holds citizenship, began to demand that he be transferred abroad for treatment. In early July 2023, footage emerged of a very thin Saakashvili at a court hearing, in response to which Kyiv summoned the Georgian ambassador and demanded the return to Tbilisi, again urging the Georgian side to release the ex-president for treatment.