On Thursday, the Russian government announced that it would stop participating in the Council of Europe and accused the European Union and NATO countries of undermining the council.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the EU and NATO maintain a “hostile” stance and stressed that they maintain “the line of destruction of the common space of the Council of Europe at the humanitarian and legal level.”
On the other hand, he said, Moscow “will not participate” in efforts to “transform” the Council of Europe “into another platform for glorifying Western supremacy and narcissism.”
“Let them enjoy communicating with each other without Russia,” he said in a statement carried by the Russian news agency TASS, at a time of rising tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Council of Europe, the “main human rights organization” on the Old Continent, is also the oldest European institution. Founded in London, United Kingdom, in 1949, it has 47 active members, 27 of which are members of the European Union, and eight observers.
The current headquarters is in Strasbourg, France. All member states of the Council of Europe are bound by the European Convention on Human Rights. The application of this Convention is controlled by the European Court of Human Rights in The Hague, Netherlands.
In the early hours of February 24, Russia launched a military attack on Ukraine that killed at least 516 people, injured more than 900 among the civilian population and caused more than 2.1 million people to flee to neighboring countries, according to the latest United Nations report. data.
The Russian invasion was condemned by most of the international community who responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and tightening economic sanctions on Moscow.
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