Saakashvili arrives in Netherlands from Poland:
Mikheil Saakashvili has arrived in the Netherlands, his wife's home country, after being expelled from Ukraine into neighboring Poland.
Asked upon his arrival on February 14 how long he planned to stay in the Netherlands, Saakashvili said, "We will see. But for sure, it's due to the circumstances I'm here because of what happened in Ukraine."
"But, obviously, it's a country I come to very often anyway," he told Dutch national broadcaster NOS.
Saakashvili, 50, was hired in 2015 by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to head Ukraine's Odesa region but fell afoul of his friend over corruption and reforms and was stripped of his citizenship in July 2017.
After beginning an opposition campaign to Poroshenko, Saakashvili was detained at a Kyiv restaurant on February 12 and taken to the airport and flown to Poland, the country from which he returned to Ukraine in September 2017 eluding a border blockade.
Saakashvili was also the president of Georgia in 2004-2013 and is wanted in the Caucasus country after being convicted of abuse of power in connection with a 2006 murder case. He has been sentenced in absentia to three years in prison.
He denies wrongdoing and says the charges are politically motivated.
Saakashvili's wife, Sandra Elisabeth Roelofs-Saakashvili, was born in the Netherlands and has Dutch citizenship.
Saakashvili said he planned to "go on a tour of Europe" to raise support for his campaign to topple Poroshenko and his government in Kyiv.
"We will defeat him for sure, we will prevail over him thorough the peaceful resistance of the Ukrainian people," Saakashvili on February 13 told Current Time Television, a project of RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. (Current Time, AP, AFP, Reuters)
Putin Personally Ordered Crimea Annexation, Ex-Duma Deputy Testifies
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
KYIV – A Russian former lawmaker has testified before a Kyiv court that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.
Speaking at the trial of Ukraine’s ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, Ilya Ponomaryov said on February 14 that he “knows for sure” Putin pushed forward the seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in the night of February 22.
That’s when Russia-friendly Yanukovych fled from Ukraine to Russia amid massive pro-European protests known as Euromaidan or Maidan.
According to Ponomaryov, many Russian officials were against the March 2014 annexation of Crimea but Putin pressured them to support the idea.
"Putin watched the Maidan events and realized that the man he was supporting was losing. And therefore he had to personally take care of his evacuation and save his life. Putin saw all of that as a betrayal by the international community, as an interference into his personal interests," the ex-lawmaker said.
Ponomaryov, the lone State Duma representative to vote against the March 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, has been living in the Ukrainian capital since 2015.
Ukrainian prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for Yanukovych, who is accused of treason, violating Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and abetting Russian aggression.
After he fled, Russia seized control of Crimea and fomented opposition to the central government in eastern Ukraine, where an ensuing war between government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 10,300 people since April 2014.
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
Odesa Mayor Detained At Airport In Embezzlement Probe
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
The mayor of the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odesa, Hennadiy Trukhanov, has been detained upon arrival from abroad on suspicion of embezzlement.
Officials at Boryspil international airport told RFE/RL that Trukhanov was detained by border guards and handed over to officers of the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) after his flight arrived from Warsaw on February 14.
In a February 13 statement, NABU said that Trukhanov had been officially informed that he is a suspect in an investigation into suspected embezzlement.
It said that a deputy mayor and two Odesa City Council members were also informed that they were suspects in the case.
Trukhanov had been away from his office for 50 days. His press service said on February 14 that he had to cut short a business trip to the Czech Republic and "return to Ukraine to take part in the ongoing investigation."
It said Trukhanov would make a public comment later.
Trukhanov returned to Ukraine a day after former Odesa region Governor Mikheil Saakashvili was deported from Ukraine, whose government says he was in the country illegally after being stripped of his citizenship in 2017 by President Petro Poroshenko.
As governor, Saakashvili accused Trukhanov of corruption and pledged to bring him to justice. But he quit in 2016, accusing Poroshenko's government of undermining his efforts to fight corruption and carry out reforms.
Last autumn, NABU said it searched Trukhanov's office, his residence, and premises of the Odesa City Council.
Trukhanov said at the time that the investigators searched not his apartment but that of his ex-wife.