Ukraine appoints Georgia ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili governor of Odessa

[bemildred]

The Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, on Saturday appointed fiercely pro-western former Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili, who once fought a war with Russia, governor of the strategic Odessa region.

Poroshenko made the announcement at a televised event in the Black Sea port alongside Saakashvili, calling the former Georgian president a “great friend of Ukraine”.

“There remain a large number of problems in Odessa: preserving sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence and peace,” Poroshenko said.

The controversial announcement of the flamboyant Saakashvili as head of the southern coastal region is a pointed signal from Kiev to Moscow that it remains set on its pro-European course despite a bloody separatist conflict in the east blamed on the Kremlin.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/30/ukraine-appoints-georgia-ex-president-mikheil-saakashvili-governor-of-odessa

[KoKo]

1. This should go well....

especially with Putin.

[bemildred]

2. They seem to have been trying to find him a job for some time now.

The reward of a faithful minion, is how I see it, "Say, how about Odessa, you want to be Governor of Odessa?"

[Jesus Malverde]

3. Kick..nt

[bemildred]

4. Misha’s moment

THE new governor of Odessa in southern Ukraine has many useful attributes. He once implemented a boldly successful anti-corruption campaign, sacking all the traffic police. That is valuable experience in a region that, even in a country as crooked as Ukraine, is renowned for graft. He speaks numerous languages, a plus in a polyglot maritime area. As an out-of-towner, he is not implicated in the oligarchic in-fighting that blights Odessa and much of Ukraine.

The oddity (and perhaps problem) is that the new governor, Mikheil Saakashvili, is not just any out-of-towner. He is a former president of Georgia, on the other side of the Black Sea—although, after leaving office in 2013, he faces allegations of abuse of office (which he denies) and cannot safely return. Mr Saakashvili led the “rose revolution” of 2003 and tried to steer Georgia towards membership of the European Union and NATO—a strategy that led Russia’s Vladimir Putin into a war with his small Caucasian neighbour in 2008. As with Ukraine after the orange revolution of 2004, Georgia’s fitful progress westward was hampered by the Kremlin’s determination to keep it in Russia’s orbit.

---

To begin with, it is unorthodox for the former president of one country to assume a relatively lowly job in another (though Ronald Mutebi, a Ugandan king, is said to have sold double glazing while in exile in London). It is a risk to entrust a sensitive governorship to a foreigner (or ex-foreigner: with the job, Mr Saakashvili acquired Ukrainian citizenship). Odessa is coveted by Russian-backed separatists with whom Ukraine’s forces have been fighting in the east—violence that flared up again this week, after a brief lull. More than 40 people, mostly pro-Russian activists, died in a fire after a street confrontation in Odessa last year. It has been quietish since, but tensions simmer.

Above all, the appointment is an insult aimed at Mr Putin, who loathes Mr Saakashvili: during the war of 2008, Mr Putin reportedly threatened to “hang him by the balls”. At a moment when finding peace with Russia, however bellicose its leadership, is one of Ukraine’s main challenges, installing Mr Saakashvili in Odessa is a provocative move.

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21653641-choice-new-governor-odessa-designed-provoke-russia-mishas-moment