10:30 06.12.2017

Saakashvili says he does not know Kurchenko

2 min read
Saakashvili says he does not know Kurchenko

Leader of New Forces Movement, ex-head of Odesa Regional Administration and former Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili has said he is not acquainted with disgraced fugitive Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Kurchenko, a business crony of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in early 2014.

Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) has accused Kurchenko of financing anti-government protests led by Saakashvili near the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

"That movie with Kurchenko I saw when Ukraine's Interior Ministry fabricated a video with Russian oligarch Mazepin. I am not personally acquainted with Kurchenko. I don't know much about him, but I do know [Russian President Vladimir] Putin quite well. They should have posted [my] conversation with him right away," Saakashvili said on his Facebook page on Tuesday.

Saakashvili said, "For the last two weeks, participants in the tent protest allegedly financed by Kurchenko since September are blocking the oil pipeline stolen by Kurchenko-Medvedchuk and Poroshenko."

"So this means Kurchenko is financing the protest camp that is blocking his oil pipeline!? The first parliament deputy who brought this up with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) is Yuriy Derevianko," he added.

Earlier on December 5, PGO chief Yuriy Lutsenko demonstrated more than 30 minutes of digital audio recordings in which men purported to be Saakashvili and Kurchenko discussed funding anti-government protests. Saakashvili has called the recordings "fake."

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