“Ivanishvili, like Jaba [Jaba Ioseliani], has got young people back on drugs, employed them in predatory ‘call centers,’ and tasked the police and security services with controlling all of this,” Georgia’s third president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said during a court hearing.

According to him, “if in the 1990s we were driven out of Abkhazia by force of arms, now we are being driven out of our country with Russian and Arab money, with the money of the Ivanishvilis, Pkhakadzes, Gilaures and Chkhartishvilis.”

“Yesterday was the day of one of the greatest tragedies in Georgia’s recent history - the fall of Sokhumi. We constantly remember those tragic events, and our enemy constantly reminds us of them as well, telling us: don’t even dare to fight, because you will lose anyway, and we will subjugate you anyway.

I have come here to tell you: ‘being subjugated’ is not in our genetic code. Accordingly, we are not people who can be subjugated, and you will not subjugate us. Moreover, the Georgian nation was born for freedom, democracy, victory and success!

That is why even now we simply have no option other than victory!

To return to Sokhumi and Abkhazia: what happened there was the culmination of everything the 1990s brought us - namely, the coup, the absence of a functioning state, crime, betrayal, fragmentation and international isolation.

Many compare the war in Abkhazia with the 2008 Georgia-Russia war. The only thing they had in common was the unprecedented heroism of our people. In every other respect, 2008 was completely different. Unlike the 1990s, this time we had a real army. Russia had to remove its mask, mobilize its entire armed forces and launch open aggression, thereby causing enormous damage to its own reputation.

It entered, of course, with the aim of conquering all of Georgia, killing me, stopping Georgian reforms, ending Georgia’s success story, the nation’s genuine hopes and dreams, and radically changing Georgia’s course. Lavrov said this directly during his conversation with Condoleezza Rice on August 8, 2008: ‘Our goal is the complete destruction of Georgia.’

At that time, they could neither destroy Georgia nor subjugate it; they failed to achieve any of their objectives. The Georgian state and its government survived, and it was precisely after the war that we embarked on a European development path. Just two years after the 2008 war, we became the world’s No. 1 reformer.

I say all this because our struggle is first and foremost a struggle for truth - including historical truth - and against falsehood. The truth is that Russia suffered a catastrophic defeat in 2008.

What else can you call it when a country a trillion times larger attacks its small neighbor but fails to undermine its statehood, independence, freedom or political course, and fails to achieve any of its objectives? It achieved nothing. 2008 is precisely a brilliant example of our refusal and inability to be subjugated.

Russia was defeated then because our state institutions were strong, the people were united, and we had many strong friends, because Georgia was a beacon of freedom and democracy for the entire world.

This is precisely what Putin cannot come to terms with, and this is precisely why Medvedev and Lavrov constantly mention me. This is why, completely unjustly, I have already spent my sixth year in prison and in this endless circus, which you have been turned into its performers.

Meanwhile, the ‘Georgian Dream’ is a specially bred variety of ‘subjugated people,’ liars and traitors in a Russian colonial incubator. They constantly revive the issue of 2008 in order to cover up the tragedy that is actually happening to us now: the attempt to plunge Georgia back into the swamp, chaos and hopelessness of the 1990s.

The 1990s were a time when crime reigned in Georgia. Jaba Ioseliani got a large part of the younger generation involved in crime and drugs, while people were robbed both by gangs and law-enforcement agencies.

The Rose Revolution put a major end to all of this. Organized crime was reduced to zero, street crime was neutralized, and a new law-enforcement system emerged in Georgia that protected people and was free from corruption.

Ivanishvili, like Jaba, has got young people back on drugs, employed them in predatory ‘call centers,’ and tasked the police and security services with controlling all of this and bringing him their share. When Lilua­shvili withheld that share from him, he was punished.

It is no coincidence that Kakha Targamadze, the Interior Minister under Shevardnadze who established the main criminal syndicate of the 1990s, recently became related to the Ivanishvili family.

In the 1990s, people were leaving Georgia en masse. During my presidency, more people were returning than leaving because hope had emerged. Ivanishvili killed that hope and openly called on Georgians to leave the country. He is also building Arab cities where Georgians will not be able to set foot, with service personnel brought in even from India and Bangladesh.

I want to remind those who do not remember: Tbilisi was an Arab city for several centuries, and it took David the Builder 30 years to liberate it and return it to Georgians.

Moreover, our two cities - Tbilisi and Batumi - are becoming completely inaccessible to Georgians, who are having the views of old buildings blocked by new skyscrapers where apartments cost $20 million.

In these cities, products have become exactly three times more expensive since my presidency. Working Georgians can no longer support themselves through their own labor and are forced either to move to the countryside or, more realistically, to flee abroad, while they are being replaced by predatory Russians with their businesses and way of life, who are convinced that everything they like should belong to them and cannot tolerate anyone different from them.

This term is called gentrification - the removal of indigenous populations from cities. If in the 1990s we were driven out of Abkhazia by force of arms, now we are being driven out of our country with Russian and Arab money, with the money of the Ivanishvilis, Pkhakadzes, Gilaures and Chkhartishvilis.

What right does Ivanishvili have to drive us out of our country? What right do Russians and Arabs have to drive us out when Georgians have no other country besides Georgia?

Did we wrest Adjara from the hands of the pro-Russian separatist-feudal leader Aslan Abashidze, the Russian army and armed groups in the 1990s, and develop it so rapidly only for Ivanishvili to sell it to Arabs and Russians?

Why did we open the way for so many talented young people after the Rose Revolution, only for the likes of Garibashvili and Mdinaradze to once again sit on top of the country?

During my time, I completely eradicated drugs: one Subutex tablet cost $3,000 and was unavailable.

Ivanishvili has scattered all kinds of deadly drugs under every tree, and practically for free,” Mikheil Saakashvili said.

According to him, during his presidency the country prospered, the system was cleansed of corruption, and Georgia began moving toward Europe.

“Ivanishvili shut down the American Technology University project, closed Iliauni and brought buying and selling back into schools and chaos back into higher education.

Ivanishvili has failed at everything, including as a dictator, because a genuine dictatorship implies strict, sometimes brutal order and excludes chaos. The man from Chorvila generates chaos every day and thinks that dictatorship means putting more and more people in prison; beyond that, he practically controls nothing. I must say directly that we are turning into a failed country with a failed dictator sitting on top of it.

All of this is based on the concept that the Russians imposed on us: that Georgians are born for crime, corruption, serving and entertaining Russians, and that freedom and statehood are an impermissible luxury for them because Georgians are supposedly one-celled people who can be subjugated.

But I tell you: we are not people who can be subjugated! We must say loudly: ‘They will not subjugate us, we will not be subjugated, we are not people who can be subjugated!’

We are the nation of David the Builder, Tamar, George the Brilliant, Erekle, Ilia Chavchavadze, Georgian Social Democracy, Zviad Gamsakhurdia and the national movement, the Rose Revolution and the large-scale demonstrations held just recently. We are the nation of the uprisings in Kartli-Kakheti in the 17th century and Guria in the 19th–20th centuries, the workers’ movements of Tbilisi and Batumi a century ago, the 1924 uprising, April 14, 1978, and April 9.

That is why we cannot and will not be people who can be subjugated - and by whom? By a weakened empire and its comical ‘stooge,’ Boria Ivanishvili? No way!

I, Mikheil Saakashvili, told you that we would end the restoration of the misery of the 1990s, security would return, and drugs and crime would disappear from our yards, streets and schools.

Corruption will be eradicated forever from our lives and mentality. I say this as a leader whose so-called ‘hidden’ assets were searched for all over the world, and not a single stolen cent was found - how could they find something that does not exist? I say this on behalf of that large group of idealists who were never bought.

Twenty-million-dollar apartments will no longer be built in Georgia, but every Georgian family will have decent housing and a job. Many foreigners will come to Georgia, but they will come as tourists, as guests - and a guest is a gift from God - not as the owners of this place.

One hundred percent of today’s clinics were built by me, and these clinics will serve the people completely free of charge. The entire income will no longer accumulate in the pockets of the clinics’ greedy owners, but will be distributed among doctors, nurses and medical staff.

Our farmers will no longer have to stand with outstretched hands; they will be equipped with modern technologies that will bring them higher incomes.

Most importantly: fear of the government should never again determine our behavior and motivation. It should be respect for the law and humanity - not fear of the government!

My greatest weakness, as well as my greatest strength, is my love for my homeland. It was precisely this love that carried me across the sea exactly five years ago in a completely hopeless situation, when the people were not fully ready.

But now the situation is different. Now I want to confirm to you 100% that Georgia is 100% ready for change, as never before. Subjugation is not in our genetic code; rather, it is the love of freedom and the refusal to accept slavery.

I am not calling on anyone to overthrow the regime. I am simply telling you: no matter how many people you imprison for calling for its overthrow, it will change nothing. I tell you this as an inevitable fact - the Chorvila-style backstreet dictatorship will inevitably collapse, and it will happen very soon.

The failed dictator is protected by a guild of ferrets, jackals and hyenas. Yet our name, by which the world knows us, derives from the Persian ‘gorg’ (wolf) - Georgia, Gorgasali,” Mikheil Saakashvili said.