Strasbourg - The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has blamed Russia of instigating and escalating of the developments in eastern Ukraine.
“The Assembly is extremely concerned about the developments in eastern Ukraine and condemns Russia’s role in instigating and escalating these developments, including with arms supplies to insurgent forces and covert military action by Russian troops inside eastern Ukraine,” reads a resolution adopted on Jan. 28, according to which the organization suspended Russia voting rights until April 2015.
In addition, the assembly expressed its dismay about the participation of large numbers of Russian “volunteers” in the conflict in eastern Ukraine without any apparent action of the Russian authorities to stop this participation, despite it being in violation of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation itself, the document said.
The assembly condemned violation of the borders of a Council of Europe member State by the Russian Federation.
It therefore calls on the Russian authorities to immediately withdraw all its troops, including covert forces, from Ukrainian territory; refrain from supplying weapons to the insurgent forces; take credible measures to end the influx of Russian volunteers into the conflict in eastern Ukraine; adopt amendments to the Criminal Code that criminalize participation of Russian civilians in armed conflicts abroad, also if they are not remunerated for their actions; and prosecute to the full extent of the Russian law, all Russian citizens who have participated as “volunteers” in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, reads the resolution.
