Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 27 called for Russia to be stripped of its voting rights on the UN Security Council.
“The world must come to deprive Russia of the right to vote in the UN Security Council,” he said in a video message to fellow citizens.
On February 25, State Duma deputy and head of the Russian delegation to the CE Parliamentary Assembly Pyotr Tolstoy announced that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe refused to cooperate with the Russian Federation, suspending the country’s membership in the organization. Tolstoy criticized this decision and said that without Russia, no council would make sense, since it is the largest country.
On the same day, it became known that the Council of Europe would hold an extraordinary meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly on March 14-15 on the topic of Russia’s operation to protect Donbass.
On February 26, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that the decision of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to suspend Russia’s membership was openly politicized, the CoE without Russia would lose its pan-European identity.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special operation to protect the civilian population of Donbass. After that, the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of hitting the country’s military infrastructure and introduced martial law throughout the state, and also announced that Kiev had broken off diplomatic relations with Moscow and recalled Ukrainian diplomats from the embassy.
On February 21, Putin signed decrees recognizing the independence of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (LPR and DPR). Also, the President of the Russian Federation and the heads of both republics, Leonid Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin, signed treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance, which were ratified by the republics themselves and Moscow the next day.
Since 2014, the Ukrainian authorities have been conducting an operation against the residents of Donbass, who refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government in Ukraine. At the same time, Kyiv blames Moscow for the current situation. Russia has repeatedly stated that it is not a party to the conflict.
For more up-to-date videos and details about the situation in Donbass, watch the Izvestia TV channel.