Article by Daniel Scorpie – Published Wednesday, February 11, 2026, 1:00 p.m. / Updated Wednesday, February 11, 2026 1:04 p.m.
Kakhaber Kaladze (47), the former Georgian central defender and mayor of the capital Tbilisi until 2025, told how he managed to indirectly convince President Vladimir Putin to end the 2008 war started by Russia in his native country.
Kaladze was one of Georgia's greatest footballers, with 83 caps and one goal for the national team, and rose to fame during his nine years at AC Milan, where he won two Champions Leagues, one title and five other trophies, being named his country's best player between 2001-2003, 2006 and 2011.
A few months after he became the most expensive transfer in the history of Georgia, Kakhaber Kaladze's brother was kidnapped!
Transferred a quarter of a century ago from Dynamo Kiev to AC Milan for 16 million euros (then it was the most expensive transfer in the history of Georgia), the former stopper revealed in the interview published by Gazzetta dello Sport how he led the peace negotiations with Vladimir Putin.
Stephane Dalmat, in the Inter jersey, in a duel with the Milanese Kaladze / Photo: Imago
I was very happy for Kvaratskhelia when they won the Champions League. I know him personally, in part because his father played with me at Georgia. He is a good boy, a little too shy, and a special player. And then, for now, I remain the only one to win the League twice!
– Kakhaber Kaladze, the former central defender of AC Milan
Just months after moving to Italy, Kakhaber's brother Levan, a medical student, was kidnapped and $600,000 was demanded for his release. Kaladze wanted to renounce his Ukrainian citizenship after President Eduard Shevardnadze failed to find his brother, whose body was to be identified in 2006.
During his time with the Rossoneri, Kaladze had the opportunity to get to know the president of the club, Silvio Berlusconi. The former president and prime minister of Italy brokered peace with Russia.
Kakha Kaladze: “War is a terrible thing. But the fundamental question is this: where is all this leading us?”
Kakhaber recalled for the pink daily that “in 2008, the war broke out in Georgia… It was a terrible situation. I went to Berlusconi, knowing he had a good relationship with Putin, and asked him if there was anything he could do.
I called him in front of me and soon peace was signed. For me, Silvio was not only a great president, entrepreneur and politician. First of all, he was an extraordinary man.”
Kakhaber Kaladze, with his wife in May 2025, when he was the mayor of the capital Tbilisi / Photo: Imago
Asked if “is it true that you and your friend Shevchenko discussed the war in Ukraine?”, Kaladze revealed: “We've talked about this several times. We experienced something similar in Georgia…
War is a terrible thing. But the fundamental question for me is this: where is all this leading us? I can't find an answer.”
Kakha Kaladze: “Zelensky does not belong to himself, to the Ukrainian people, nor to Ukraine, because he serves another country!”
Kakha Kaladze retired from football in 2012 after two seasons at Genoa, returning to Georgia and launching himself into quite a few charity projects. He was a FIFA ambassador in SOS Children's Villages and then established the “Kala Foundation”, with the help of which he raised money for refugees from North Ossetia during the Russian invasion of Georgia.
Pippo Inzaghi was incredible. We used to tease him in training because he couldn't keep the ball on his foot ten times. But he had something innate that made him a formidable striker. The toughest opponent I had to mark? At first sight I would say Ibrahimovic: Zlatan had extraordinary physical strength and in a derby that we lost 1-2, he made me suffer terribly”
– Kakhaber Kaladze, the former central defender of AC Milan
In 2012, he also entered politics, joining the Dream-Democratic Georgia party and being elected to the Parliament in the same year. So that, after being the Minister of Energy, he ran for and won the elections for the mayor of the capital Tbilisi in 2017. He obtained two mandates, the last one ending in 2025.
Kakha Kaladze is the mayor of Tbilisi. Photo: Imago Images
In December 2024, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, imposed sanctions against Bidzina Ivanishvili (the Franco-Georgian billionaire who founded the party he belongs to) and his 18 associates, including Kakha Kaladze, in the context violent repression against participants in pro-EU protests.[96]
In response, Kakhaber explained the next day to media representatives that “Zelensky does not belong to himself, to the Ukrainian people and to Ukraine, because he serves another country!”.
