Saakashvili asked Zelenskyy to include him in the list of civilian prisoners of war of the Russian Federation

Former head of Georgia, Ukrainian citizen and politician Mikheil Saakashvili asked the president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to include him in the list of civilian prisoners of the Russian-Ukrainian war. He said this wrote on his Facebook page after he was discharged from the hospital and returned to a Georgian prison.

Saakashvili said that he was now forced to turn to Zelenskyy because his transported from the medical facility where he was treated for severe poisoning, back to the prison to the same staff who poisoned him.

"My poisoning in March 2022 occurred shortly after the outbreak of full-scale war. The fact of poisoning was established by American and German laboratories. From the very beginning, the reprisal against me was demanded by Putin, а Medvedev і Lavrov have repeatedly boasted about my imprisonment," he said.

According to the politician, he was initially arrested on a "completely invented case," and the then Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili "directly stated" that the case was related to Saakashvili's activities in Ukraine.

"У a new criminal casein the recent criminal case against me, I, along with others, am accused of sabotage in favor of a foreign hostile state. The materials of this case contain your [Zelensky's] statements, as well as statements by [advisor to the Head of the presidential Office] Mykhailo Podolyak," he said in an address to the Ukrainian leader.

According to Saakashvili, this "illegal Georgian authorities directly declare Ukraine an enemy foreign state".

"And this is not surprising, because from the very beginning of this great war, the Russian oligarch Ivanishvili and his minions openly sided with Russia," he emphasized.

The politician said that in this context, it is "absolutely obvious" that his persecution and fate are connected to the war.

"I want to ask you, just like in 2019, when you returned my illegally taken citizenship, to please include me as the former head of the Odesa Regional State Administration, as the head of the Executive Committee of the National Council of Reforms, who is illegally detained by the pro-Russian regime of Georgia, in the list of civilian prisoners of this war with the corresponding legal consequences," Saakashvili addressed Zelenskyy.

• In the fall of 2021, Saakashvili, who has been a citizen of Ukraine since May 2015, decided to return to Georgia despite sentence in absentia. On October 1 he was detained.
• On November 20, Saakashvili ended a 50-day hunger strike, but was still in a dangerous condition.
• In December 2022, the Human Rights Council Commissioner stated that saakashvili's health has deteriorated significantly, and president Zelenskyy called on Georgia to release Saakashvili for treatment.
• On November 6, 2025, it became known that in Georgia a new criminal prosecution of Saakashvili has been launched and seven other opposition members.