Now you won’t complain: what the country’s exit from the Council of Europe threatens the Russians with

This circumstance is the most alarming, since very soon there will be no one to complain about the non-observance of human rights in our country.

True, officials are reassuring. “Despite this, all the rights of Russians will be guaranteed unconditionally”, - said Slutsky, head of the international committee of the State Duma. “Russia this year did not transfer a contribution to the Council of Europe (about 4.2 billion rubles), this money will go to support citizens and the economy, said, for its part, the speaker of the Duma Volodin - Without Russia, the Council of Europe will have nothing to do, it remains one way out is to disband…”

Until mid-September, human rights will still be respected

However, despite the fact that Russia has already fulfilled the first condition - it notified Strasbourg of its withdrawal, in accordance with the Charter of the Council of Europe, the country's independent withdrawal from the organization cannot be immediate. It is always valid only from the beginning of the next financial year - from January 1, 2023 in our case, according to human rights activist Pavel Chikov (recognized as foreign agents in the Russian Federation - editor's note).

Since the condition is nonetheless met, there is no need to exclude Russia from the earlier date. But the Committee of Ministers is not bound by the PACE conclusion, and therefore can decide on the exclusion this year.

The decision will be made at a meeting of the Committee of Ministers tomorrow, March 17. If there are no major changes, Russia will leave the Council of Europe from January 1, 2023. From the same date, the European Convention on Human Rights will cease to operate, unless Russia denounces it earlier.

The denunciation of the Convention is possible six months after the notification is sent to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, that is, not earlier than 16 September 2022.

Now Russia will definitely go "its own way"

The political observer for Kommersant Dmitry Drize writes about the real threat of Russia's exit from the Council of Europe in his column:

“For the sake of objectivity, it must be said that all these European structures are mired in bureaucracy, their influence on decision-making is minimal. And yes, cliches and unwillingness to hear a different opinion prevail there. The reform of these institutions is long overdue. Moreover, it can be assumed that, most likely, after the Ukrainian events, something similar will happen one way or another.

But at the same time, there are so-called basic values - first of all, freedom of the individual, assembly, inviolability of private property, the right to express one's opinion, and so on. When under all this is your signature, you are forced to act with caution. It is unpleasant when you are being slandered at a PACE session, when you are deprived of your word, and various emissaries come to Moscow and demand something.

From now on, there is no such problem. And let's just say it's not good for everyone. Now we are really going our own way. The main thing is to understand where it leads and what is the purpose of this difficult journey. Apparently, we will have to seriously deal with the ideological base”.

This has happened before in the history of the country.

Interestingly, a similar collision has already happened in the history of our country: because of the Finnish war, which Stalin unleashed in 1939. Then the Soviet Union reacted to its exclusion from the League of Nations with a TASS statement dated December 16, 1939, where it indicated that only 7 out of 15 members voted for the exclusion of the USSR, and the last three member countries of the Council were elected a day before the vote, in which the Soviet Union found fraudulent intent. The remaining 8 members of the Council either abstained or were absent. Thus, the League of Nations violated its statutory provisions.

In addition, the USSR accused the League of Nations of indulging the intrigues of Great Britain and France, which, from its point of view, instead of ending the war with Germany, were supporting the provocateurs of the war in Finland. Indignation was also expressed there that "randomly selected" representatives "of 127 million people" excluded "the USSR with its 183 million population", as well as satisfaction with the fact that the Soviet Union is no longer "connected to the League of Nations pact and will henceforth have free hands".