Mikheil Saakashvili, the currently imprisoned former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili on Monday claimed “everyone who is trying to portray me as feeble are playing Putin’s game and are very wrong”.  "Physically, of course, I have problems, but mentally I have never been stronger than now, and I can clearly see the direction of the struggle between me and the United National Movement, and I am very optimistic about its prospects”, Saakashvili said on his social media post. 

He added “I am also strengthened by the great support I feel from the Georgian people, for whom I have never betrayed and will not betray them - I have not left them and will not leave them in this time of trial!”

Saakashvili was arrested on his clandestine return to Georgia in October 2021 and is now serving his six-year-term for abuse of power while in office. 

The Georgian Dream Government claims the former President, who currently holds Ukrainian citizenship and held a public post in the country before his detention, aimed at sparking tension in Georgia to organise a coup and later “drag” Georgia into the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.