Georgia's jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who has Ukrainian citizenship, has on Thursday appealed to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to exchange him in a prisoner swap with Russia.
The former pro-Western leader of Georgia, in office between 2004 and 2013, became a Ukrainian citizen in 2015, while serving as the governor of the southern region of Odesa for about a year and a half.
Saakashvili asked Zelensky to include him "in the list of civilian prisoners of this war, with the corresponding legal consequences," saying he was "illegally detained by the pro-Russian regime in Georgia," in a Facebook post.
Last week, prosecutors charged Saakashvili with a coup attempt, an accusation that could prolong his time behind bars.
In his post, the Georgian said he was "accused of sabotage in favour of a hostile foreign state" with the new charge, also claiming that the case file mentioned Zelensky.
The Ukrainian wartime leader has previously called on Georgia to allow Saakashvili to be sent to Ukraine for treatment, a plea that was denied by the Georgian authorities.
On Wednesday, Saakashvili was transferred from a private clinic back to prison to continue serving his sentence, which he denounced as politically motivated.
Previously, the 57-year-old had been held at the Vivamedi clinic in Tbilisi for three years, where he was receiving care following a 50-day hunger strike.
Saakashvili, who led the peaceful Rose Revolution in 2003 and was in charge of Georgia during a 2008 war with Russia, was arrested in October 2021 shortly after returning from exile in Ukraine.
Relations between Kyiv and Tbilisi have been lukewarm over Saakashvili, and over the four-million Caucasus nation neighbouring Russia taking a cautious stance on the war and not joining the Western coalition supporting Ukraine.
Critics accused the Georgian Dream ruling party of being pro-Russian, something that the party itself denied.
