Speaking on behalf of the United Russia faction at the plenary session, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Petr Tolstoy
Petr Olegovich
stressed that the interests of citizens are the priority of not only domestic but also of Russia's foreign policy.
He noted that this Friday, the day of the reunification of the Crimea with Russia, a meeting of the Council of the State Duma together with the legislative authorities of this region will be held in the Crimea.
Petr Tolstoy reminded that “five years ago it became clear that there is a unanimous opinion in society that our country should not succumb to the Western pressure; the Russians will not tolerate any attempts to interfere in our internal affairs.”
“Just on these dates a wide front is unfolding a new attack on post-Crimean Russia by our so-called Western partners,” he noted.
The Deputy Chairman of the State Duma also said that the leading idea of the recent winter session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Vienna was Russia’s accusations of aggression.
“Following the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the leading idea of all work is once again Russia's accusations of aggression: Kerch, accusations of political pressure on the independent Baltic states and Ukraine in connection with the construction of Nord Stream-2, the creation of the just another OSCE commission to investigate the death of [Boris] Nemtsov, to which non-governmental organizations existing on Western grants will supply their materials,” said the parliamentarian.
According to Petr Tolstoy, the recent Address of President Vladimir Putin to the Federal Assembly was a response to numerous attacks on Russia.
”Russia can only be a sovereign state and no other way around,“ said Petr Tolstoy.
He stressed that “this means that our children, family values, our faith, security issues of our citizens are Russia's internal affairs, and no one has the right to dictate us how to live, what principles and values to use. And it doesn’t matter who and what thinks about this in Europe or anywhere else.”
According to the parliamentarian, the time has come to ”substantively discuss“ the norm of the Constitution of the Russian Federation that international law has supremacy over national law.
“Maybe in the framework of the discussion of our 25-year-old Constitution it’s time to discuss also the question of how to realize paragraph 4 of Art. 15 stating that international law has supremacy over national law. […] It may be time to substantively discuss such norms of our main law,” concluded Tolstoy.
