MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is a vacuous and worthless structure, Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of Russia’s Federation Council, or upper house of parliament, said, commenting on the PACE resolution on the decolonization of Russia.
"The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is such a vacuous, worthless, biased and Russophobic structure that there is no sense in commenting such silly things. I would only like to ask them what kind of history textbooks they used and whether they know anything about history," she said in an interview with VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin.
The upper house speaker noted that it was European countries who colonized African and many other countries. "For centuries, they have been draining resources, killing people, behaving as colonizers," she explained. "But our country - the former Soviet Union - supported liberation movements in countries striving for sovereignty and helped them cast off the shackles of colonialism."
She stressed that Russia is a sovereign and mighty state, which pursues an open, clear and independent foreign policy. "Their toxic Russophobia is spiking. They don’t know what to say more, what to invent," she added.
According to Matviyenko, the West has long been dreaming of dismembering Russia to "come and colonize" it. "Let them dream on. This will never happen and can never happen. But this is the height of their stupidity, ignorance and unprofessionalism. We were right to quit this structure in 2022," she said, adding that "their words and empty resolutions mean nothing.".