"What we saw was terrible" - Papuashvili does not mention genocide even after returning from Ukraine

Even upon his return from Ukraine, Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili did not say that what he saw with his own eyes in Bucha and Irpen was genocide.

Papuashvili says he saw signs of war crimes, but there needs to be a legal assessment of genocide.

"Of course, what we saw is terrible, and I also mentioned there that, unfortunately for Georgians, this is not the first time we have seen such scenes, and we remember such scenes from the 1990s, we remember them from 2008. It is familiar to us and in some ways it has evoked the tragedy seen in Georgia. I also talked to my colleague, and it's important what the Ukrainian government is doing, and we couldn't do that in the 1990s, to document it legally. The graves in Bucha, where French forensic experts and foreign specialists work, is still the main thing now. The main thing now is not political statements, but legal assessments.
That is why the Hague Tribunal is the instance where all this documentation must be created and then a decision made. The day before, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague arrived, and we have experience in that respect in dealing with The Hague Tribunal, and we can help in any way we can. Of course, what we saw there is evidence of war crimes, and the fact is that what we saw was damage to civilian buildings, and the human casualties need a legal assessment, and everyone should be involved here now," Shalva Papuashvili said.

For reference, the Georgian delegation paid a one-day visit to Ukraine. The Georgian parliamentary delegation arrived in Ukraine on April 16, where it met with Supreme Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk and visited Bucha and Irpen, destroyed by Russian aggression.