Ukraine’s President-Elect Vladimir Zelensky should start protecting human rights with Georgians, namely Mikhail Saakashvili, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters.

"As for freedoms, it would be reasonable to start, say, with Georgians, or former Georgians, rather than with Russians. For instance, it would be fair to restore the Ukrainian citizenship of a person who used to be a Georgian but now calls himself a Ukrainian, I mean Mikhail Saakashvili," Putin said.

The Russian president pointed out that Saakashvili "was illegally deprived of citizenship and deported from the country, so it would be fair to bring him back and restore his rights, as well as the rights of many other Ukrainian nationals who had to leave the country and move abroad in order to escape the current Ukrainian regime’s persecution," he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that envisages granting Russian citizenship to the residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk district.
In response, Ukraine"s elected president Vladimir Zelensky wrote a post on Facebook , where he touched on the topic of distributing Russian passports to the population of Donbas and wrote  that Ukraine was ready to grant citizenship to all citizens of freedom, including Russians.