Georgia has threatened to revoke pro-Western former president Mikheil Saakashvili's citizenship after he was granted a Ukrainian passport and appointed as governor of the strategic Odessa region.

Georgia's Justice Minister, Tea Tsulukiani, said Saakashvili will remain a Georgian national until the current president formally revokes his citizenship by a special decree.

Last year, authorities seized Saakashvili's two-hectare vineyard in east Georgia, a small apartment belonging to him in Tbilisi, his wife's flat in the capital, tiny plots of land owned by his mother and grandmother, and his grandmother's 10-year-old Toyota car.

During his time at the helm in Georgia, Saakashvili, 47, became an arch-nemesis of the Russian leadership as he dragged his tiny ex-Soviet homeland out of Moscow's orbit and closer to the West.

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