American analyst Lincoln Mitchell writes on Twitter that the West has been desperate to overlook the crimes of Georgia’s third president’s regime.

“The West has been desperate to overlook the excesses and crimes of [Mikheil] Saakashvili’s regime for decades.

So many western leaders, rather than ask how they got it wrong on the UNM when it was in power, have decided it is easier to keep thinking Misha was a great democrat”, - tweeted Lincoln Mitchell.