Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili believes that it is wrong to compare Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with imprisoned former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Zurabishvili said this in an interview with Bloomberg, UNN reports.
The journalist asked what the president thought about Navalny's death in prison, pointing out that Georgia has Mikheil Saakashvili, who is also in serious condition.
"I don't think we can compare... There is no point in comparing, especially in this case. Georgia is not Russia, and I will always repeat this," Zurabishvili said.
She added that she considers Navalny's death "a catastrophe and a tragedy for human rights and democracy around the world.
"For Russia, this will only confirm what kind of regime Russia has today," the President added.
According to Novosti Georgia, the ruling Georgian Dream party had previously issued similar messages. The head of the ruling party's parliamentary faction, Mamuka Mdinaradze, said it was "immoral and cynical" to compare Navalny to Saakashvili, who "created a system in which hundreds of people died under unknown circumstances." At the same time, according to Mdinaradze, unlike Navalny, Saakashvili "is serving his sentence in a two-room suite.
The day before, Saakashvili himself recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin had repeatedly compared him to Navalny and "hated" both of them "equally. The politician claims that he was poisoned in prison on Putin's orders, which almost cost him his life.
After Navalny's death, Saakashvili's United National Movement party also appealed to Zurabishvili, calling for a "historic decision" to release the politician.
To recap
For a year and a half, Saakashvili has remained in the Tbilisi clinic Vivamed, where he was transferred from the prison hospital after a long hunger strike. In December 2022, a medical consultation at the ombudsman's office diagnosed the politician with neuropsychological, gastroenterological diagnoses, musculoskeletal and vision problems, fever of unclear etiology, anorexia, and rapid weight loss, muscle pain, and cramps. At the time, the doctors emphasized that all this could be "a consequence of an unidentified infectious process or intoxication.