Council of Europe main building in StrasbourgPARIS, Mar 15PACE voted in favor of a conclusion calling on the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to demand the entry of the Russian Federation from the organization. the date from which the Russian Federation will cease to be a member of the Council of Europe,» the conclusion reads.Russia will denounce the Charter of the Council of Europe, Kosachev said 216 PACE deputies voted for the draft conclusion, no one, three abstained against. already adopted, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov handed over a corresponding letter to the Secretary General of the organization. Also, as Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs, noted after that, when withdrawing from the Council of Europe, Russia will be forced to denounce the European Convention on Human Rights. Council of Europe Secretary General Maria Pejchinovich-Burich, as reported, has already received a notification from Russia about withdrawing from the organization. «Tomorrow I will turn to the Committee of Ministers and inform about our unanimous position,» said PACE President Tiny Cox after voting on the document. The document adopted by PACE notes that the assembly «condemns the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine in the strongest possible terms and expresses its solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, reaffirming their unwavering support for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.» The Assembly believes that «the armed offensive of the Russian Federation against Ukraine violates the UN Charter», «contradicts the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris for a New Europe». PACE indicates that this is also a serious violation of Article 3 of the Charter of the Council of Europe and a violation of the yourself RF by becoming a member of the organization.The State Department said that Russia should not be a member of the Council of Europe. The Assembly, in particular, calls on the Russian Federation to «cease hostilities against Ukraine and immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw its armed forces from the territory of Ukraine», «refrain under any circumstances from attacks on the civilian population and ensure opening and maintaining humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians to safe regions of Ukraine or to safe countries outside Ukraine. «In view of the participation of Belarus in the aggression committed by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, I recommend to my bureau to suspend relations between the Assembly and the authorities of Belarus,» the adopted document. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Russian Armed Forces, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive, but there is no talk of the occupation of Ukraine, the Russian President emphasized. Council of EuropeThe document also states that PACE «supports all efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice, including the decision of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the situation in Ukraine and the establishment of a special commission of inquiry by the UN Human Rights Council, as well as proposals for creation of a special international criminal tribunal for war crimes committed during the war in Ukraine, provoked by Russian military aggression. «A number of amendments were also adopted to the document. In particular, PACE called on the European Court of Human Rights to give priority to complaints filed by citizens of Ukraine against the Russian Federation «in connection with actions committed in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, given that these persons do not have access to effective remedies against such action at the national level.
