Dmytro Natalukha on the presence of russian representatives at the autumn session of PACE

Press Service of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
03 October 2025, 09:34

The autumn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is taking place in Strasbourg, with the participation of Dmytro Natalukha, Chairman of the Committee on Economic Development, as part of the Permanent Delegation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to PACE.

During the meeting, Dmytro Natalukha responded to attempts by some European politicians to return russian representatives to the Assembly, who were expelled in 2022 after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"In the Parliamentary Assembly today, some European politicians are trying to bring back the russians we expelled in 2022.

To be fair, I will say that they are trying to bring back the so-called “good russians” – opposition figures whom you all know, or at least have heard of.

I could not ignore these efforts, so I took the floor and emphasised that the real “good russians” can only be fully represented in PACE when members of the russian Volunteer Corps are present here," said Dmytro Natalukha.

The Ukrainian delegation consistently opposes any attempts to return representatives of the aggressor country to international institutions, emphasising that this contradicts European values and ignores russia's crimes against Ukraine.