President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Wednesday that he believes that the “Georgian government is killing” the former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who is currently in prison, Kyiv Independent reports.

He spoke at a press conference with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen after seeing photos of the current condition of Saakashvili, who is a citizen of Ukraine.

On February 1, the mass media published photos showing signs of his deteriorating health and rapid weight loss.

Saakashvili, who is currently serving a six-year prison term on charges of abuse of power, was transferred to the intensive care unit due to deteriorating health, his press secretary Giorgiy Chaladze reported on January 31, Radio Free Europe reports.

According to the publication, the director of the clinic refused to confirm the information and said that “he is still in the salon.”

Mykhailo Saakashvili was recently diagnosed with COVID-19.

Saakashvili’s mother said that at night the politician lost consciousness and the temperature rose.

On December 20, Zelensky asked Georgia to release Saakashvili for treatment on board the ship. However, no action was taken.

In November, Saakashvili’s lawyer Shalva Khachapuridze said that doctors believe that the former president has 36 diseases, including tuberculosis and dementia.

Georgia’s human rights representative, Nino Lomjaria, said in November that Saakashvili was not receiving adequate medical care and was being mistreated by other detainees.

Saakashvili, who was the president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, implemented pro-Western reforms in his native country.

Ukrainian citizen

After the rival Georgian Dream party came to power in Georgia in 2012-2013, Saakashvili moved to Ukraine. Then, in 2015, President Petro Poroshenko appointed him chairman of the advisory council on reforms and governor of Odesa region.

However, Saakashvili began to expose corruption schemes and quarreled with Poroshenko.

He was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship, prosecuted and then deported by Ukrainian authorities in 2018 in what he sees as an illegal political vendetta.

In 2019, Zelensky was elected president and returned Ukrainian citizenship to Saakashvili. In 2020, Zelensky appointed the former president of Georgia as the head of the Executive Council of Reforms of Ukraine.

Saakashvili returned to Georgia in 2021, trying to win the support of the opposition, and ended up in prison.

The current Georgian authorities have stripped Saakashvili of his Georgian citizenship and charged and convicted him in several cases that he says are political and fabricated.

In 2018, a Georgian court sentenced him in absentia to six years in prison on the charge that he ordered the beating of opposition deputy Valery Gelashvili. The evidence against Saakashvili was based on the testimony of two of his political enemies.

Also in 2018, a Georgian court sentenced Saakashvili to three years in prison for abuse of power for pardoning four police officers.