Georgian authorities have ruled out handing Saakashvili over to Ukraine.

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Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze stated that there is no chance of former President Mikheil Saakashvili being handed over to Ukraine.

As reported by Caucasian Knot, on March 12, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced Mikheil Saakashvili to nine years in prison, finding him guilty of embezzlement of budget funds. This charge was brought against Saakashvili back in 2014. At the hearing, the Penitentiary Service presented a certificate stating that Saakashvili did not wish to participate in the trial remotely and requested that the hearing be postponed until he recovered. Saakashvili returned to Georgia in the fall of 2021 and was arrested after being sentenced in absentia to three years in prison for abuse of power during the pardon of convicts. In March 2024, opposition members collected more than 150,000 signatures in a petition to pardon Mikheil Saakashvili.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze commented on the possibility of Mikheil Saakashvili's extradition to Ukraine, stating that "there is no chance of this," Georgia Online reported on November 17.

On November 12, Saakashvili was transferred from the Vivamed Clinic to Penitentiary Facility No. 12, and on November 14, he wrote a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy requesting his inclusion on the list of prisoners of war.

Earlier, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, stated that Saakashvili's sentence demonstrates the Georgian government's lack of political independence and its biased attitude toward Moscow.

Previously, the Caucasian Knot reported that Saakashvili faced three to five years in prison for illegally crossing the border. He refused to participate in the court hearing. The court sentenced him to 4.5 years in prison.