The proposal of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE) Thorbjorn Jagland on the resumption of the work of the Russian delegation offended Kiev to the core. Ukrainian diplomats delivered an ultimatum to the leadership of the organization: either we, or Russia. "Jagland openly advocated the return of Russia to the PACE without the implementation of resolutions. If this happens, in my opinion, the Ukrainian delegation has nothing to do there anymore, since from that moment all resolutions of the assembly will lose their meaning due to self-abasement, "wrote on his Facebook page the head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly Vladimir Ariev. The day before, on November 26, the Financial Times reported that Thorbjorn Jagland offered to return Russia to the work of the Parliamentary Assembly and to discuss the possibility of lifting sanctions from our country. Otherwise, the European official said, Moscow can finally leave the Council of Europe, which will become for the entire European community "a big step back". Jagland also noted that the PACE is obliged to protect human rights "wherever people live," including in Russia and the Crimea. The last argument also aroused Ariyev's displeasure. "The secretary general has a strange logic: let's allow Russia to violate human rights in Ukraine in order to protect human rights in Russia. This raises the question of Jagland's true intentions, "wrote the politician. The head of the Ukrainian delegation said that Jagland will pay for his words. "It is far from a fact that PACE will buy into Jagland's manipulation, which has long been trying to reduce the influence of parliamentarians in the Council of Europe by discrediting its representative body. And here Russia is a very convenient tool. However, these revelations may turn against the very Secretary General of the Council of Europe, since he was not given a mandate to such statements either in the Parliamentary Assembly or in the Committee of Ministers, "said Ariev. With the rebuff to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, the first vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Irina Gerashchenko. "The fact that Russia has stolen part of the territory of Ukraine, Georgia, its (Jagland) does not bother, the fact that the Russian Federation violates human rights and created a territory of lawlessness in the occupied regions - also does not bother the CE Secretary General.

The fact that if Europe allows the Russian Federation to violate basic European principles and human rights, Europe will remain without Europe, because it will be another, degraded Europe - also does not come to the head of the Council of Europe, "wrote a deputy in Facebook.

Gerashchenko urged the Ukrainian authorities to actively defend the interests of the country. "We live during a certain degradation of European institutions and their external weakening - the same Russia. You can take it and go with the flow, you can tell it and try to resist it. The Ukrainian delegation to PACE precisely chooses the second way, because in fact it is the first and the right one, "the parliamentarian said..