Dangerous Flight Which Was Kept in Secret by Saakashvili

Koba Liklikadze, Radio Liberty 

Like previous years, on the fourth anniversary of August 2008 Russian-Georgian War, the President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili was still under particular attention. However, there was nothing original and new in his main messages with regard to the war, except a strange story which was not known to the large society for so long time.

Crazy Flight to Occupied Poti

Soon after the war in August of 2008 Georgian President hardly escaped the capture by the Russian occupation army. Saakashvili made this sensational statement during his meeting with population in Akhaltsikhe on August 9, last Thursday; he recalled the story which had occurred four years ago and was not yet known to the recent history of Georgia: “I well remember Russian occupation army was standing all around us but we had to fly to Poti to cheer up local population because it happened after civilians died there. I remember we flew high in the skies because Russian aircrafts were flying all around us and the sky was closed. And we flew into Poti in this way. It was impossible to move on the land; they had blocked the road.”

When Russian army was unconditionally controlling land and air communications of Georgia, the story about Georgian president’s secret flight to Poti sounds very incredible but another sensation is the second part of the story about his arrival in Poti:

“I arrived there and started public statement on live broadcasting; when Russians saw me speaking on-live, they got into several dozen military vehicles and when they started off to arrest me, a local police unit blocked their way at the entrance to Poti; our police officers were lightly armed with trench-mortars and told them they would open fire if they try to continue the way. A Georgian man was accompanying Russians and he was speaking Georgian… by the way, several hundred Georgian people were members of Russian armed forces then. And that Georgian man told our police officers not to be afraid; they just intended to enter Poti and were interested only in one person. They would not harm anybody else.”

Heroism of Unknown Police Officers 

On August 9, Akhaltsikhe population was listening to Mikheil Saakashvili’s story very attentively. The president was nervous when recalling the unknown facts of the four-year old history; when speaking, he declared that trench-mortar was light armament and he forgot to name those Georgian police officers who did not get afraid of occupant soldiers sitting over “dozens of military vehicles” and rescued President Saakashvili from the capture of Russian soldiers 4 years ago.

“And the police officer replied to him in this particular case this person [they were interested in] is Georgia. I will never dare to identify my humble personality with Georgia but they spoke about national symbols; they meant that if the government of Georgia was physically destroyed, it would have been equal of subduing and invading Georgia. And the symbol still remains. They [Russians] are still focused on this topic and they will never be satisfied with their victory until Georgia has the same government,” Mikheil Saakashvili stated on August 9.

Of course, we tried to find out the personality of those police officers who saved the president from capturing; we wanted to know whether they were awarded with military awards for such a brave deed. But neither president’s administration nor the former head of press-center of the MIA [during the war] and current head of press-center of the government of Georgia Shota Utiashvili said anything about it. “I do not know; I cannot say anything.”

The only information that is archived on the official website of the Georgian President’s administration is the press-release of August 29, 2008 which reports details about President Mikheil Saakashvili’s speech during his meeting with the representatives of Poti local government.   

At that time, subdivision of the Russian occupation army was still deployed on the territory of Nabada in Poti and they left the main “Sea Gate” [Poti] of Georgia only on September 13, 2008. However, the press-release does not mention heroism of Georgian police officers and attempt of Russian soldiers to capture Georgian president. It would have been interesting if the President’s press-center will spread video-materials of his “risky visit” to Poti in 2008. It should not be difficult to find those videos. Last Thursday, Mikheil Saakashvili repeated twice that when Russian soldiers were going to capture him, he was speaking alive.

Original Text