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From Soros Darling to Disgrace: How Saakashvili Fell Out of Western Elite's Grace

© AP Photo / Czarek SokolowskiMikheil Saakashvili, former Georgian president-turned-Ukrainian opposition leader, speaks to reporters in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018
Mikheil Saakashvili, former Georgian president-turned-Ukrainian opposition leader, speaks to reporters in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018 - Sputnik International, 1920, 17.03.2025
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Ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has had his eight-year jail sentence for abuse of power, embezzlement and illegal border crossing extended by four years. This is a stark contrast from his previous status as a longtime favorite of Western globalists. Who backed him?
Let’s dive into his connections:

Soros & the Rose Revolution

Saakashvili led Georgia’s color revolution in November 2003, becoming Soros’ ‘chosen one’. In 2002, the US tycoon handed him the Open Society Foundations’* award.
Soros funded the Rustavi-2 TV station and Kmara! (“Enough!”), a youth group, both of which spearheaded street protests.
He also set up training for 1,000 Georgian activists via the Otpor movement that ousted Slobodan Milošević in the former Yugoslavia, per The Globe and Mail.
Between August and October 2003, Soros spent $42 million preparing for regime change, wrote journalist and diplomat Richard W. Carlson in May 2004, citing an ex-Georgian MP.
After seizing power, Saakashvili announced the creation of the Capacity Building Fund for "government reforms" together with Soros at Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum, a key globalist platform.
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Bush & the Botched Invasion

President Bush upped military funding for Georgia and promised NATO entry, emboldening Saakashvili to launch his failed invasion of South Ossetia in August 2008.

John McCain & Lobbying

US Senator John McCain’s top foreign-policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was a paid lobbyist for Saakashvili until March 2008, according to The Wall Street Journal, but the now jailed politician denied that.

Hillary Clinton & NATO Push

In June 2012, Saakashvili hosted then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Tbilisi and thanked her for her "personal leadership on all [Georgian] issues," especially her role in securing NATO integration. However, in 2013 he was voted out.

Lobbying No Longer Works

Arrested on October 1, 2021, upon returning to Georgia, Saakashvili turned to his former American patrons. According to Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) disclosures, his family paid over $900,000 in 2022–23 to US lobbying firms to secure his release. Despite this, he remains in prison.
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*banned in Russia
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