MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Friday, the former Georgian leader met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to reportedly discuss Saakashvili’s upcoming appointment as the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine’s southwest. The granting of citizenship is the first step toward the nomination.
"Mikheil Saakashvili became the citizen of Ukraine," Mustafa Nayyem, an Afghan-born member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada parliament, said in a Twitter post.
In February, Poroshenko also signed a decree appointing Saakashvili as his non-staff aide.
Since his ascent to power last June, Poroshenko has been rallying a team of foreigners around himself to assist him in governing Ukraine. In December 2014, he admitted having granted Ukrainian citizenship to US, Georgian and Lithuanian nationals, who were handpicked for Cabinet jobs, including a Georgian minister of health, a Lithuanian economic development and trade minister and a US-born finance chief.
