Ukraine 'Extremely Concerned' Council Of Europe Caving To Russian 'Blackmail'

[TomSea]

Ukraine 'Extremely Concerned' Council Of Europe Caving To Russian 'Blackmail'
Christopher Miller

KYIV -- Ukrainian officials and politicians have reacted with alarm to reports that the Council of Europe is considering lifting sanctions imposed against Russia over its military intervention in Crimea out of fears that Moscow might otherwise leave the body.

"We are extremely concerned," Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's ambassador to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), told RFE/RL from Strasbourg on November 27. "The issue now goes far beyond interests of Ukraine. It's in the interests of the entire region to defend the Council of Europe from Russian blackmail and leaning toward Russia."

Kuleba's comments came after the Financial Times (FT) reported on November 26 that Moscow was demanding that its voting rights in PACE -- which were revoked in 2014 in response to Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula -- be restored, and that the secretary-general of the Council of Europe was lobbying in support of the idea.

Continued at: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-fears-council-of-europe-caving-russian-blackmail/28882603.html