Russia Will No Longer Participate in Council of Europe - Foreign Ministry

Late last month, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the Council of Europe's decision to suspend Russia's membership in the organisation as "politicised".

The Russian Foreign Ministry has announced that Moscow will no longer participate in Council of Europe sessions.

"Unfriendly to Russia, EU and NATO states, abusing their absolute majority in the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CMCE), continue destroying the Council as well as the common humanitarian and legal expanse in Europe", the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Referring to an "irreversible course of events", the ministry made it clear that Russia does not want "to put up with these subversive actions carried out by the collective West in line with the imposition of a 'rules-based order' to replace international law trampled by the United States and its satellites".

According to the statement, Moscow will not participate in NATO and EU turning "the oldest European organisation into another platform for mantras about Western superiority and narcissism".

"Let them enjoy communicating with each other, without Russia", the ministry added.

The statement comes after Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova lashed out at the Council of Europe in late February over its decision on 25 February to suspend Russia's membership over Moscow's special operation in Ukraine.

Describing the suspension as "politicised", she argued that it indicates that the Council of Europe has essentially become an "obedient tool of the Western bloc and its satellites".

"Those who inspired and supported this flawed decision will bear all responsibility for the destruction of the common legal and humanitarian framework on the continent, and for the inevitable detrimental consequences for the Council of Europe itself", Zakharova emphasised.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov has since said that the Russian military and forces of the Donbass republics continue advancing and have captured eight more settlements as part of Moscow's ongoing special operation in Ukraine.

The operation was announced by President Vladimir Putin on 24 February with the aim of demilitarising and de-Nazifying Ukraine after a request for assistance from the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR). Russia's Defence Ministry has repeatedly underlined that the country's armed forces are only targeting Ukraine's military infrastructure with high-precision weapons and that Ukrainian civilians are not in danger.