Putin’s ‘Personal Prisoner’ Issues Ominous Warning to Trump

Photo Illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/Getty Images Vladimir Putin has been thinking of ways to take revenge on his enemies for decades, but there was only one man who the Russian leader promised “to hang.” Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president and leader of the first color revolution in the post-Soviet space, shocked Putin during the first term of his 26-year rule, back in 2003.

The revolution ousted the Moscow-friendly old guard in Tbilisi, brought a pro-Western government to power, and accelerated Georgia’s integration efforts with Europe and NATO, which the Kremlin saw as a betrayal.

Now behind bars on charges he says were orchestrated by a “Russian agent,” Saakashvili is sending his old friend Donald Trump a wake-up call about cozying up to Russia and its allies in the Caucasus.

The American president’s son, Eric Trump, has announced plans to visit Tbilisi to unveil the latest Trump Tower, a move that has raised eyebrows for the project’s links to Bidzina Ivanishvili, a pro-Kremlin oligarch sanctioned by the U.S.

Saakashvili, who in 2015 received Ukrainian citizenship and automatically lost his citizenship in his native Georgia, has urged Trump to be under no illusions about the Kremlin and what its war in Ukraine means for the rest of the world.

“I wrote several letters to Trump with pleas to help Ukraine.

I am happy Trump didn’t abolish the pre-existing sanctions and even introduced some new ones.

But certainly, much more is needed,” he told the Daily Beast.

“Being soft on Russia’s regional allies is counterproductive,” he said of Georgia’s current leadership, which has increasingly leaned towards the Kremlin and begun adopting the same laws to persecute LGBT and “foreign agents.” “You have to make this part clear: if you are helping Putin in any way, you will be punished by the U.S.

That also should be true about Georgia, which is actually aiding Russia to bypass sanctions.

We are looking to U.S. leadership and any ambivalence has a huge demoralizing effect.

America has to regain its moral leadership, for which we all loved it,” he said.

“But going back to Ukraine, I have my 5-year-old daughter Jasmine under bombardment in Kyiv.

And I know that her and countless other lives depend upon President Trump sending Patriot missiles to repel Russian attacks,” Saakashvili said.