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Saakashvili's route from Kyiv to the Netherlands
Summary
A look back at the deportation of the Movement of New Forces leader and his move to the Netherlands within two days.
Where did Mikheil Saakashvili go after being expelled from Ukraine? By 14 February 2018, the answer was the Netherlands.
Saakashvili, leader of the opposition Movement of New Forces party, relocated to the Netherlands on 14 February 2018. Two days earlier, on 12 February, he had been detained by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kyiv and deported from Ukraine to Poland.
A man without citizenship
The deportation followed a decision by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, who had stripped Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship on 26 July 2017. With that status removed, Saakashvili was removed from the country by the interior authorities and sent to Poland, from where he then moved on to the Netherlands.
A Dutch political story the same week
The Netherlands was in the news for another reason on 12 February 2018. Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra admitted to lying about having attended a meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2006. Zijlstra had said Putin mentioned plans to expand Russia to include Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states. He now said he had not been present and had borrowed the story from a source.
The two developments were separate, and the reports from the time do not connect them. Both, however, put the Netherlands and Ukraine-related politics in the headlines in the same days of February 2018.
