Good morning. We'll get the live blog rolling with this item from our news desk on Mikheil Saakashvili, who is being questioned by the SBU today:
Saakashvili Visiting Ukrainian Security Service For Questioning
KYIV -- Mikheil Saakashvili, the leader of Ukraine's Movement of New Forces party and former president of Georgia, has been summoned for questioning by the Main Directorate of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
Saakashivili was due to meet with a senior investigator on December 26 at 11 a.m. local time in Kyiv.
His lawyer, Pavlo Bohomazov, said Saakashvili was planning to appear for questioning.
On the eve of the meeting, Saakashvili expressed concerns that Ukrainian authorities were trying to deny him temporary protection status and “create conditions" for his "expulsion from the country.”
Saakashvili said he expected the attempt to be made during a December 26 hearing at Ukraine's Supreme Administrative Court.
That hearing is scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m. local time.
Saakashvili said on December 25 that he would attend the court hearing and "invite everyone who is not indifferent to justice in Ukraine."
He maintains that he is legally a permanent Ukrainian resident and that Ukrainian authorities have "no legitimate instruments to extradite" him to Georgia -- where he is wanted on charges of abusing the office of the presidency.
Ukrainian authorities have accused the former Georgian president and ex-Odesa governor of abetting an alleged "criminal group" led by former President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia after his ouster in February 2014.
They have also suggested that protests led by Saakashvili are part of a Russian plot against Ukraine.
Saakashvili denies all the charges.
On December 18, Saakashvili appeared at the Prosecutor-General's Office in Kyiv but refused to answer questions from investigators there.
He told reporters on December 18 that he would give testimony only when the case is handed over to the Ukrainian Security Service, "as required by law," the Interfax news agency reported.
Saakashvili was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013.
He lost his Georgian citizenship in 2015 when he accepted Ukrainian citizenship in order to take the post of Odesa governor at the request of President Petro Poroshenko.
But Saakashvili resigned the Odesa post in November 2016, complaining of rampant corruption, and has since become an ardent opponent of Poroshenko.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian and Georgian services and Interfax
We are now closing the live blog for today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning to follow all the latest developments. Until then, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.
Here is today's map of the latest situation in the Donbas conflict zone, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE)
