“When you meet with colleagues from other countries and start explaining this or that position, talk about the situation, the conversation ends with the words: why did not you voice this information before, why did not you tell about it? Thus, nevertheless, it is extremely important to have an exchange of information, to have a dialogue,” said Chairman of the State Duma Viacheslav Volodin
Vyacheslav Victorovich
The Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the eighth convocation. Elected in single mandate constituency № 163 (Saratov constituency - Saratov Oblast)
in an interview to TV channel “Russia 24”, answering the question whether there was a reaction following the statement in connection with the aggravation of the situation in Ukraine.
He also reminded that recently there was ”a statement of the Chairman of the Slovak Parliament, who expressed his opinion on [Petr] Poroshenko, saying that he does not believe him.“
“Our argument in relation to Ukraine is based on completely understandable things. And we say: you are trying to make some kind of a claim, let’s look into depth first. Was there a military coup? – There was. Were you silent? – You were. Next, was there the dispersal of the parliament? – There was. Were you silent? — You were. Was there the ban on the activities of the parties? – There was. Moreover, a number of parties were forcefully dispersed. Were you silent? – You were. The physical elimination of the officially elected president [Viktor] Yanukovych was miraculously avoided. Were you silent, did you not condemn? – No, you didn’t. When the nationalists burned people in Odessa, were you silent? – You were. And today, when it is not just tension but the situation created by the current president of Ukraine that has put Europe on the verge of war, you are looking for those who are guilty,” said Viacheslav Volodin.
According to him, ”it was the lack of responsibility that led to the provocation in the Kerch Strait, then an introduction of martial law was and putting the troops under the gun.“
“But do the people of European countries want to live in fear and depend on what may happen in Ukraine tomorrow? That's right, giving up in small things, then we came to the situation that will lead to tragedy. They are simply out of control. It will be a tragedy,” stressed the Chairman of the State Duma, adding, “when we now start talking about it, understanding comes, but no one wants to take responsibility for what happened.”
During the interview, the situation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where the Russian Federation remains deprived of the right to vote, was also discussed.
“It wasn’t our decision, and, in fact, we explained our position. The Parliamentary Assembly, depriving the delegation of the Russian parliament of the right to express its opinion, deprived the citizens of our country of this right, so we decided not to pay our contribution, in the amount of tens of millions of dollars. Moreover, Russia is among the top three countries that are the largest contributors to the Parliamentary Assembly budget,” said Viacheslav Volodin.
He reminded that the fundamental Russian position is the following: “bring the PACE Regulations into conformity, remove the discriminatory norm on depriving national delegations of the right to vote, and therefore depriving whole countries of the right to vote”. According to Viacheslav Volodin, this contradicts the very principles of parliamentarism.
