Former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili and a crowd of supporters barged past guards to enter Ukraine from the Polish border on Sunday after a prolonged standoff between Saakashvili and the Ukrainian authorities.
Amid shouts of “victory” and “glory to Ukraine”, Saakashvili returned to Ukraine despite being stripped of Ukrainian citizenship by his one-time ally, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and facing possible arrest and deportation.
Poroshenko invited Saakashvili to be a regional governor to help drive reforms after protests in 2014 ousted a pro-Russian president in Kiev. But Saakashvili quit as governor of Odessa in November, accusing Poroshenko of abetting corruption.
Thousands of Saakashvili’s supporters gathered on the border on Sunday while prominent lawmakers, including former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, traveled with him from Poland.
Saakashvili had tried to cross the border by train but the train did not leave its station in the Polish town of Przemysl. The woman in charge of the Ukrainian train said she had been ordered by the authorities – she declined to specify whether Polish or Ukrainian – to stop the train leaving until Saakashvili got off.
He then traveled by bus to the border and was stopped by guards who sealed off the area, causing a tailback of vehicles. Supporters pushed their way through and escorted him across.
“I came with my Ukrainian passport, I wanted to show my passport and make a statement,” a triumphant Saakashvili told supporters after crossing. “Instead, the authorities arranged this circus.”
