Paul Goble
Staunton, Sept. 22 – Like its Soviet predecessor, the Kremlin is notorious for saying one thing and doing another; but now it is dropping any pretense that it feels responsible for defending ethnic minorities on its territory given that the Russian government has called for the denunciation of the EU convention on the defense of such minorities it signed in 1996.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has signed off on a document that calls for President Vladimir Putin to send to the Duma a resolution denouncing Russia’s signature on the EU Convention, the latest example of Moscow’s exit from the international legal regime that it entered so hopefully in the 1990s (publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202309220008 and tass.ru/politika/18822591).
Russia already exited the Council of Europe in March 2022 after that body[‘s Council of Ministers suspended Moscow’s participation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council because of Russia’s armed invasion of Ukraine. Moscow then closed its representation with the Council on July 9, 2022, reducing its mission to an office of the Russian embassy in France.
This latest move by the Russian government will undoubtedly outrage many non-Russians who will see it as an indication that the Putin regime is unashamedly promoting a Russia for the Russians and it will do little to stop these minorities from appealing to the international court of public opinion.
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