Medvedev: Saakashvili - empty place, zero

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili - "empty place, zero", Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting with reporters of leading television channels. “I am sure that all our people have no antipathy to Georgia. On the contrary, Georgia is a country close to us, the Georgian people are close to us and roads. And we, by the way, saved it repeatedly, no matter what separate politicians in Georgia say. Therefore, Saakashvili is an empty place, zero, sooner or later it will leave political history, and any other leader of the country that appears there, we are ready to build it up with it. Relations, restore diplomatic relations, go as far as they will be ready, ”Medvedev said.

In February, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Russia hopes to restore friendly relations with the Georgian people. "We never identified the Georgian leadership and the Georgian people. And I really expect that this truly fraternal people finally realize for us that Russia is not an enemy, but a friend, and relations will recover," Putin said.

He emphasized that the breakdown of relations with Georgia is not the fault of Russia. “This is the result of the policy that the Georgian leadership is still trying to pursue,” the prime minister said.

On January 26, a press secretary of the President of the country Mikhail Saakashvili Manana Manzhgaladze said that Georgia would restore diplomatic relations with Russia only after the “de-Kommelion of Georgian territory” and the liquidation of Moscow embassies in Sukhumi and Tskhinvali. Thus, she commented on the statement of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev about reconciliation. Manzhgalaladze recalled that the gap of diplomatic relations with Russia in September 2008 was a response to the invasion of the Russian army to the territory of Georgia and the occupation of 20 percent of the country's territory - the "Abkhaz and Tskhinvalsky regions". She also noted that the problem in Russian-Georgian relations is not in Mikhail Saakashvili, but in the fact that Moscow is not considered international recognized boundaries of Georgia.

On January 25, at a meeting with students of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University Medvedev, answering the question of one of the students about Georgia, said that Moscow was ready to restore diplomatic relations with Tbilisi, and recalled that it was the Georgian side that was the initiator of their gap. "There is only one person with whom I would not want to deal with, you yourself understand who I am talking about, and I will not meet with him, and I won’t extend his hand. As for all other politicians, as for the Georgian people as a whole, I would really like this alienation strip to end as soon as possible," the head of state said.

Medvedev emphasized that an air transportation has already been launched, and in the framework of joining the WTO, in his opinion, an energetic exchange of goods will begin. "And human communication needs to be simplified, I completely agree with this. But it is necessary that the oncoming action from the Georgian authorities," the president concluded.

On January 21, Mikhail Saakashvili said that Vladimir Putin’s words that writer Boris Akunin is in the opposition because he is an ethnic Georgian is evidence that the Russian prime minister was fighting the Georgian people as a whole. “When he said that Akunin was fighting him, since he was Georgian, thereby he said that he had a problem with Georgian, Georgian people, and not with any Government of Georgia. This is what we already knew, but now this person said this with his lips,” the President of Georgia emphasized.

“We are not afraid of Putin’s threats, since they have their own country. All these panic statements, confidence that it turns out, there was no peacekeeping operation, and there was a Georgian-Russian military confrontation, which we always talked about, indicates what this regime is in,” Saakashvili added.

Vladimir Putin, at a recent meeting with the leaders of the media, after many thousands of post -breed rallies of his opponents, mentioned the nationality of Akunin in the context of a possible meeting of the authorities and representatives of the protest movement. “For example, we all love the writer Akunin. He writes very interesting things for me in any case. This is filmed. It is filmed. He, as far as I know, is ethnic Georgian. I understand that he could not perceive Russia's actions during the famous crisis and events in the Caucasus, and, in fact, the armed struggle between Georgia and Russia,” Putin said. In November 2008, the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur published the article "Sarc-Russian: The Secret History of one Transformation." In it, according to the diplomatic adviser to the Champs Elysees, Jean-David Levita, dialogue of Vladimir Putin and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at a meeting in the Kremlin was given. “I will hang this Saakashvili for eggs,” Putin said. “The Americans hung Saddam Hussein,” he added. "Vladimir Putin really participated in such a meeting in the Kremlin on August 12 and really discussed issues related to Georgia aggression against South Ossetia. Vladimir Putin really used very tough rhetoric to Saakashvili. At the same time, the publication of such quotes, and even with reference to the adviser of the President of France, at least caused a complete misunderstanding," responded to the article, - responded to the article Putin press secretary Dmitry Peskov.