Georgia’s outgoing President Mikheil Saakashvili said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin wants him jailed or dead and urged the U.S. to help curb what he says is Russia’s rising influence over his country.
Saakashvili, a 45-year-old American-educated lawyer who allied Georgia with the U.S. after gaining power in 2003 and whose nation was routed in a war against Russia in 2008, said billionaire Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili wants to arrest him on trumped-up corruption charges at Putin’s request. Ivanishvili, who gave up his Russian passport to focus on Georgian politics, funded the coalition that beat Saaskashvili’s party in elections last year.
