Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the Georgian authorities are publicly killing and torturing former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili

He stated this during a press conference with Austrian President Alexander van der Bellen in Kyiv, Ukrinform reports.

"Public torture of a Ukrainian citizen. I am not discussing why the former president of Georgia was arrested, and what the consequences of this are for politics and democracy in Georgia. This is their internal issue. I am talking about the arrest of Ukrainian citizen Mikheil Saakashvili, who is publicly tortured every day. I think their goal is to kill him," said Zelenskyy, Ukrinform quotes.

The President of Ukraine also showed a photo of Saakashvili during the court hearing on February 1, saying that the former president of Georgia had been poisoned.

In June 2018, in Georgia, Saakashvili was sentenced in absentia to six years in prison in the case of the beating of former opposition MP Valery Gelashvili in 2005.

On October 1, 2021, the Georgian authorities announced that Saakashvili had been detained by the police.