On the evening of 17 October, a drone alert was declared again in several districts of Krasnodar Krai. The warning covered Anapa, Gelendzhik, Novorossiysk, Abinsky, Krymsky and Temryuksky districts. Earlier in the day, alerts had also been issued in Sochi, Tuapse municipal district and Mostovsky district.
Former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili commented on the upcoming elections, which will be held on October 26. "We must prepare to go to the polls, observe the elections, fight for votes. After the government announces falsified results, we must prepare together, hundreds of thousands of people, to peacefully stand on the streets for days, weeks, months, until we force them to recognize the choice of the Georgian people," he said.
"There are millions of us, and we must be ready to defend ourselves and celebrate victory. Victory is achieved only in battle, we have no other solution. Look how scared they are," Saakashvili said via video link at a hearing in the Tbilisi City Court.
Earlier, the head of the Georgian Ministry of Justice Rati Bregadze said that Saakashvili could be transferred from the clinic back to prison.
Since his arrest on October 1, 2021, Mikheil Saakashvili has spent less than six months in prison. The rest of the time he spent in clinics: first in a prison hospital, then in a military hospital, and since May 2022 in the Vivamed clinic. Saakashvili is under arrest, as he was sentenced in absentia to imprisonment on two criminal cases. Since his arrest, he has gone on hunger strike three times.