Mikheil Saakashvili threatens to jump from roof before being detained then released in security forces standoff with supporters

Ukraine’s prosecutor general has called Mikheil Saakashvili a “fugitive from justice” after security service agents detained the former Georgian president at his Kiev apartment, only for him to escape into an angry crowd of supporters.

Yuri Lutsenko said allies of Saakashvili had taken money from a Russia-based oligarch to destabilise Ukraine, and gave Saakashvili until 9am on Wednesday to hand himself in to prosecutors and face questioning. Saakashvili dismissed the charges as politicised “lies”.



Saakashvili, 49, was once an ally of the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, who gave him Ukrainian citizenship to allow him to become governor of Odessa region in 2015. The pair have since fallen out, with the feud playing out in the streets of Kiev.

Saakashvili’s game of cat and mouse with Ukrainian authorities began before dawn on Tuesday, when officers from the SBU security service entered his flat in central Kiev. He fled to the roof and threatened to jump, Ukrainian media reported.



He was dragged down by masked security forces agents, but later there were clashes on the ground as supporters of Saakashvili blocked the van holding him from driving away.

Teargas was used against protesters during the hour-long standoff after which Saakashvili was released from the van.

He led a group of supporters to parliament, where he gave a speech denouncing Poroshenko as a “traitor to Ukraine” and “the head of an organised crime gang”. He said Poroshenko’s government was “trying to get rid of a loud voice telling them they are thieves”.

Lutsenko said Saakashvili’s activities in the country were funded by Sergei Kurchenko, an ally of the deposed president Viktor Yanukovych, who is in exile in Russia.



Saakashvili dismissed this as nonsense: “There is no greater enemy of Putin in the post-Soviet space than Mikheil Saakashvili,” he said, insisting it was Poroshenko who was acting to benefit the Russian president.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mikheil Saakashvili appears on a rooftop in Kiev. Photograph: Reuters

Tuesday morning’s arrest was the latest chapter in the bizarre and incongruous recent biography of a man who was once considered the reformist hope of the post-Soviet region. It is also the latest episode in an increasingly bitter feud between the former Georgian leader and the current Ukrainian president.

Poroshenko appointed Saakashvili, whom he had known since their student days, to run the southern region of Odessa in 2015 in the hope that his energetic reformist tendencies would transform the area. However, Saakashvili resigned at the end of 2016, blaming Poroshenko for the slow pace of reform and promising to go into opposition and create his own party.

Saakashvili was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship, while outside the country earlier this year, but he forced his way across the border with the help of supporters.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Saakashvili is detained in Kiev. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Saakashvili came to power in Georgia in the Rose Revolution of 2003, and introduced sweeping reforms that helped reduce corruption and red tape. However, his rule became marred by allegations of creeping authoritarianism. In 2008, the Georgian army was routed by Russia and when Saakashvili left office in 2013 he was widely unpopular.



His second political life in Odessa was never boring, with televised publicity stunts, late-night meetings and increasingly strident criticism of Poroshenko’s government. During one cabinet meeting in Kiev, Saakashvili accused the interior minister, Arsen Avakov, of corruption and shouted that he would go to jail. In response, Avakov threw a glass of water in Saakashvili’s face and called him a “bonkers populist”.

Play Video 0:26 Moment ex-Georgian president freed after dramatic standoff in Kiev - video

Poroshenko’s supporters say he is trying to make important reforms while dealing with a political legacy of ingrained corruption and a punishing war in the east, where the army is fighting separatists funded and backed by Russia.

Critics have accused Poroshenko of governing in the same manner as previous presidents, giving preferential treatment to oligarchic allies and failing to make changes fast enough. International backers of Ukraine have grown impatient with the slow rate of reform.

The images of masked special agents manhandling Saakashvili is unlikely to burnish Poroshenko’s reform credentials, though the Georgian also has a mixed reputation in the international community, with many wary of his impulsive style. While few doubt his political aptitude and knack for staying in the limelight, his party, the Movement of New Forces, has popularity ratings of less than 2%.