Yasko says pro-Russian forces active in Ukraine PACE delegation

Yelyzaveta Yasko
said she was dismissed from her position as head of the Ukrainian delegation to
the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) after pressure from
her colleagues and the President’s Office who are cooperating with Ukraine’s
pro-Russian forces. Among them is People’s Servant MP Oleksandr Merezhko, whom
she refused to approve as vice president of the Ukrainian delegation. “This is
a person corrupted certainly not by non-state interests, but by something
altogether different. Who removed pro-Ukrainian amendments from various
resolutions,” she said in a Jan. 18 interview with the hromadske.ua news site. She was accused of
treasonous activity by someone in the President’s Office for this position, she
said. As a People’s Servant MP as well, she was criticized for abstaining from
the vote to approve the scandalous Serhiy Shkarlet as education minister.

Yasko criticized
another delegation member – People’s Servant Deputy Parliamentary Faction Head
Yevheniya Kravchuk – for giving interviews to Ukraine’s pro-Russian television
networks, several of which are controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk, widely acknowledged
as Putin’s righthand man in Ukraine. Kravchuk is “absolutely not an independent
person,” Yasko said. “I believe that when a person engages in information
cooperation with channels that are hostile to Ukrainian interests, it’s
necessary to raise the issue of what interests this person is pursuing and in
whose interests she is acting,” Yasko said.

Meanwhile,
delegation member Dmytro Natalukha of The People’s Servant party “is lobbying
the interests of certain state enterprises” and is promoting a bill on
localization, which doesn’t conform to Ukraine’s Euro-integration requirements,
Yasko said. On Jan. 11, a majority of the 27 members of the Ukrainian
delegation to PACE selected Maria Mezentseva of The People’s Servant party to
replace Yasko. Mezentseva was opposed by the delegation’s pro-Western MPs,
Oleksiy Honcharenko of the European Solidarity party told the pravda.com.ua news site.

Zenon Zawada: Little is surprising about what Yasko revealed.
It was well-known that a large segment of The People’s Servant party is
cooperating with pro-Russian politicians and media. At this point, the party’s
only saving grace is the celebrity status of President Zelensky. If that ever
evaporates, then the party will disintegrate as it will have little else to
bind its members together. Many of its members can’t stand each other.
Meanwhile, the presence of pro-Russian MPs in the PACE delegation will
negatively impact Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations.