Russian delegation to PACE seeks withdrawal from discussion on Crimea

The head of the delegation, Peter Tolstoy, noted that “Ukrainian colleagues remain faithful to their main principle – human rights are nothing, Russophobia is everything”.

TASS reports that the head of the delegation, State Duma deputy speaker Peter Tolstoy, said in a Facebook post on Sunday that the Russian delegation during a meeting of the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) had succeeded in removing the issue of human rights observance in Crimea from the assembly’s agenda.

“Despite the fact that the opening of the session will take place on 25 January, we have already done a lot of work. In particular, during the PACE Bureau meeting, we managed to achieve the removal of the question about Crimea, which was traditionally initiated by the Ukrainian delegation,” Tolstoy wrote, “The debate concerning the difficult fate of the ‘Berlin patient’ – also an initiative of the Ukrainian side – will take place only in a discussion format, without the adoption of any resolution based on its results.”

Tolstoy noted that “Ukrainian colleagues remain faithful to their main principle – human rights are nothing, Russophobia is everything”.

“One gets the impression that there are no other problems to discuss on the largest international platform at all. They are echoed by the Baltic States and Poland,” he concluded.