Group of PACE officials want Russia to return, Ukraine diplomat says

A group of influential officials in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe wants to remove the sanctions imposed on Russia for its illegal occupation of Crimea and Donbas and return its diplomats to participate in the sessions “at any price,” Ukrainian representative Dmytro Kuleba told the eurointegration.com.ua news site. The October session will demonstrate how realistic the chances are to return to PACE by January, he said.

“Very complicated, and in our view, very non-constructive processes are taking place,” he said. “Their goal is to return the Russian delegation to the PACE session hall without having fulfilled the conditions of the resolutions that the very assembly approved.”

Zenon Zawada: The Russians are actively lobbying Western legislatures and executive bodies at all levels to remove the sanctions, which is their top geopolitical priority at the moment. So far they have been successful in the Netherlands, which rejected the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, and are particularly active in France. The U.S. presidential elections will prove pivotal in this matter. If Donald Trump is elected in November, we see the tide turning in favor of Russia.