Saakashvili on Post-Election Developments in Russia
President Saakashvili said on December 10, that post-election developments in Russia was “the beginning of a great process”, which would lead to putting an end of “the injustice system” in Russia.
In what appears to be the largest opposition protest in years, tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Russia on Saturday to demand an end to Vladimir Putin’s rule and a rerun of a parliamentary election.
“You see what is happening in the north from us,” Saakashvili said in televised comments. “What is happening in Russia is only the beginning of a great process, which will put an end to injustice, unfair system existing there.”
“This is only the beginning of a multi-month agony, which this injustice will apparently have,” he continued. “I just want to say that whatever happens, Georgia should continue its course, we should not pay attention either to the threats and blackmails, or to a syndrome of excitement about Putinism in the fifth column.”
Then he continued without specifically naming any figures: “Those, who want to be excited at Putin and see Georgia’s future in [having] relationship with Putin, I think, the following months in Russia will be notable and interesting for them.”
Also on Saturday, the Georgian President’s administration released a written statement by Saakashvili saying: “We express our sympathy to the Russian people who are today fighting the same injustice the victim of which is not only the Russian society but also the occupied regions of Georgia. XXI century has no room for regimes that try to topple the choice of liberty of its own people and neighboring states.”
In the same televised comments earlier on Saturday, Saakashvili said that although there was “a crisis” in “our neighborhood, Russia, Europe”, “a very serious reconstruction is underway on all non-occupied territories of Georgia.” He also said that although Georgia might not be in “an ideal shape”, but construction works were underway throughout the country and it was important not to lose this momentum.
Saakashvili made these remarks in the town of Gurjaani in eastern region of Kakheti, where he opened a new hospital.