PACE president: Russia will have to show credibility after war

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) says that after the war it will be necessary to decide how to interact with Russia, but first, it will have to prove that it can be trusted.

Source: PACE president in an interview with European Pravda

According to Cox, its war of aggression made it clear that Russia is not a democracy. It's a totalitarian regime that threatens its neighbours, even invades them. 

Quote: "When the war is over, we have to investigate how we will relate to Russia because Russia is there. It's the biggest European state with millions and millions of citizens who also deserve to be protected by the rules that the Council of Europe has," he said.

But, the PACE president noted, there cannot be justice without accountability. 

Quote: "So Russia first has to withdraw from Ukraine.  Then it has to admit that it overstepped its obligations. That means that it has to restore the damage done. It also means that it has to show credibility for the future," Cox said.

In his opinion, just stopping the war and waiting for the next chance for Russia to attack again is not a sustainable solution.

Quote: "It is tremendously important that in Russia itself things are going to develop as well.  This regime that has started this war of aggression is not a credible regime for the future. It is up, of course, to the citizens of Russia to make decisions on that. Only then, I see a chance that Russia returns to international law," the PACE president said.

As an example, he recalled that after the Second World War there was the Nuremberg trial, and Europe managed in not too much time to develop a non-democratic country, such as Nazi Germany, into one of Europe's leading democracies.

Quote: "It will be more difficult to achieve this here, because Russia has never been a democracy," Tiny Cox admitted at the same time.

Reminder: Tiny Cox, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), had to deny reports that he was allegedly a Kremlin agent and the main contact of a Russian diplomat expelled on suspicion of espionage, after the publication of the investigation.

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