"Dream" did not vote for the PACE resolution on the deportation of children - according to Mikanadze, they had already left

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has recognised the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia as genocide. The Assembly adopted the resolution by 87 votes to 1 at its spring session in Strasbourg on Thursday.

The document does not include the signature of any representative of the Georgian government. The Georgian Dream say they had already departed Strasbourg yesterday, so were unable to take part in the vote. Givi Mikanadze, a member of the Georgian Parliament's permanent delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), says that focusing attention on this is speculation.

"This is speculation by the radical opposition and you are promoting it. These issues are put on the agenda at the last moment, so we had already left... when we left from here, the tickets were bought weeks before, because we had a specific agenda written down. We voted on all the decisions, there are no exceptions to this, so based on specific cases and meetings, this visit ended yesterday and we left," Mikanadze says.