Russia announced the correctness of the decision to withdraw from the Council of Europe

Leaving the Council of Europe (CE) was the right decision, Russia will not return to this organization. Nikolai Kobrinets, Director of the Department for European Cooperation of the Russian Foreign Ministry, told TASS about this.

“Over the past year, we have only become convinced of the correctness of the choice made. Our “divorce” with Strasbourg is not a whim, but a well-thought-out decision that has matured over a number of years, ”he stressed. The head of the department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained that the CE in its current form is different from the organization to which Russia joined in 1996. Kobrinets noted that double standards, hypocrisy and Russophobia have become hallmarks of the Council of Europe.

At the end of December 2022, the Cabinet of Ministers proposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to terminate the international treaties of the Council of Europe in relation to Moscow. On January 17, the head of state submitted a relevant bill to the State Duma.

Vice Speaker of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev explained that this would eliminate legal conflicts after leaving the organization. He noted that Russia withdrew from the “closed” (that is, open only to members of the Council of Europe) conventions of the organization from March 16, 2022, from the moment of the decision to withdraw from the CE.