Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Tbilisi to stop its "abuse" against former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who also holds Ukrainian citizenship.

In a Twitter statement, Zelenskyy accused Russia of killing Saakashvili "at the hands of the Georgian authorities." 

The Ukrainian president said he had instructed the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to summon the Georgian ambassador to Ukraine in strong protest against Saakashvili's treatment. Kyiv will also ask the Georgian ambassador to leave Ukraine within 48 hours to hold consultations with Tbilisi.

"Once again, I call on the Georgian authorities to hand over Ukrainian citizen Mykhailo Saakashvili to Ukraine for the necessary treatment and care," Zelenskyy said. He urged Ukraine's partners to save the former president.

"No government in Europe has the right to execute people, life is a basic European value," he said.

After leading Georgia's so-called Rose Revolution in 2003, Saakashvili was sworn in as president. He left office in 2013 later, but his two-term tenure saw Russia's 2008 invasion of the country.

In 2015, Saakashvili renounced his Georgian citizenship and became the governor of Ukraine's Odesa Oblast, a post he occupied until late 2016. 

He returned from Ukraine to Georgia in 2021, when he was arrested on grounds of a corruption conviction he had received in absentia.