On October 12, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution recognizing the Russian regime as “terrorist.” The document is called “Further escalation of aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.” The Assembly also called on the Georgian authorities to release from arrest a citizen of Ukraine, ex-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili.
The initiator of the resolution was the representative of the European People's Party from Lithuania, Emanuelis Zingeris. Back in May, Lithuania recognized Russia as a terrorist state and the special operation in Ukraine as genocide and advocated the creation of a Special International Military Tribunal to “investigate and evaluate war crimes.”
99 deputies voted in support of the PACE resolution, one abstained.
The Assembly also called on Russian authorities to release opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza and review the cases of other political prisoners. In addition, PACE expressed concern about incoming reports of torture of Armenian soldiers in Azerbaijani captivity.
PACE is a consultative body to the Council of Europe. Its decisions are advisory in nature and have no binding force.
The Assembly's demand to release Mikheil Saakashvili was perceived in Georgia as an attack on the country. “This is a direct attack on the Georgian state... Naturally, such a resolution will not have any support on our part,” said Chairman of the Georgian Parliament Shalva Papuashvili.
Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was arrested on the basis of sentences passed in absentia on October 1, 2021, when he arrived in Georgia from Ukraine. He was sentenced to 6 years for abuse of official powers and organizing the beating of deputy Valery Gelashvili in 2005.
Three more criminal cases against Saakashvili are pending in court - about embezzlement of state funds, illegal crossing of the Georgian border and the dispersal of the action on November 7, 2007, when security forces dispersed several peaceful protests in Tbilisi. However, court hearings are postponed due to the health of the defendant. He has been in a medical facility since May 12. The politician's health was undermined due to the 50-day hunger strike that he declared in prison.
In July, Saakashvili announced that he would quit Georgian politics and leave the country if he was released from prison. He said that he would go to Ukraine, where he has been a citizen since 2015. On his social networks, he predicts victory for Kyiv in the “special operation” with Russia and calls on it to liberate Transnistria, a territory not controlled by the Moldovan authorities, where Russian troops are also stationed.
“After the liberation of strategic cities in the Kharkov region from Russian occupiers, we begin to feel the smell of victory. One of Ukraine's next targets is Moldova, the separatist enclave of Transnistria,” Saakashvili wrote. According to him, the capture of Transnistria for the Ukrainian army is a matter of 2-3 days, which will restore the territorial integrity of Moldova and create a precedent for Georgia, the politician noted.