UPDATED! Saakashvili Lashes Out At Poroshenko, Quits As Odesa Governor
By Christopher Miller
KYIV -- The boisterous former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has resigned as governor of Ukraine's turbulent Odesa region, accusing the Ukrainian president of dishonesty and the central government of sabotaging crucial reforms.
"This is going on quite openly," Saakashvili told an outdoor press conference streamed live on Facebook from the port of Odesa.
Then, in an apparent allusion to the continuing war pitting Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine against the central government in Kyiv, he added that the “Odesa region is being handed over not only to corrupt people, but also to enemies of Ukraine.”
Read our just-updated story in full here.
An excerpt:
Signs of tension between him and other Ukrainian politicians have been there all along. At a cabinet meeting last December, Saakashvili and the interior minister, Arsen Avakov, got into a heated argument that ended with Avakov throwing a glass of water at Saakashvili, who retorted that Avakov was a “thief” who would go to prison. Avakov later described Saakashvili as a “bonkers populist”.
In May, Saakashvili told the Guardian that the government was “a bunch of mediocre people” and challenged Poroshenko to see through his reform agenda.
Recent wealth and property declarations, made mandatory for Ukrainian officials, have shown again how different the lives of the country’s political elite are from those of its largely impoverished population, as well as its underfunded army, which is fighting a demoralising war with Russia-backed separatists in the east of the country.
While ostensibly a step forward for transparency, the declarations showed that many Ukrainian politicians had millions of dollars in cash, luxury cars and watches, vast wine collections, and in one case even a personal church.
“I will do everything it takes until we win full victory to free Ukraine from this scum, from this corrupt dirt which is capitalising on the blood of our soldiers and the victims of Maidan, and which has betrayed the ideas of the Ukrainian revolution,” said Saakashvili.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council:
WATCH: Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili resigned from his position as governor of Ukraine's Odesa region with a fiery speech in which he lambasted Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for supporting corrupt clans and said the ideals of the country's 2014 revolution had been betrayed.
