Saakashvili became the Governor of Ukraine’s Odessa Oblast on 30 May 2015 and lasted there less than a year and a half. A lot was expected back then. Oleg Panfilov, a journalist and lecturer at the Tbilisi Ilia State University, called him a ‘kamikaze’ – a person that would be determined to fight corruption and to introduce the reforms.
- The city of Odessa has the most unexploited potential in the whole Ukraine. It is not a weakness, it is a unique opportunity - said the Governor during the inauguration.
He brought his close associates to Odessa, including those working with him in Georgia, the so-called ‘Young Reformers’, but id did not help. Saakashvili began to accuse the then Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his entourage of sabotaging his reforms. The conflict was escalating. According to observers, Saakashvili spent a lot of time on participating in television programs, instead of dealing with the problems of Odessa.
Finally, he resigned on November 9, 2016,
