PACE Moves to Deny Recognition of New Russian Duma, Redirect Frozen Assets to Ukraine

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), meeting in Strasbourg, voted to treat the new composition of Russia's State Duma as neither democratically elected nor a legitimate representative of Russian citizens, according to the first of two resolutions adopted on Russia.

The document addresses the September 18-20 voting, The Moscow Times reported. PACE cited the suppression of political opposition, restricted access to independent information and the intimidation of voters. The assembly separately noted the exclusion from the elections of the Yabloko party, which ran on an anti-war platform.

PACE also condemned the holding of Russian elections in the occupied territories of Ukraine, including Crimea, Sevastopol and parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions under the control of the Russian armed forces. The assembly considers such elections unlawful and calls for those responsible for organizing them to be held to account.

According to the results of the vote, United Russia won 349 of the 450 seats. The Communist Party received 37 mandates, the Liberal Democratic Party 23, New People 19 and A Just Russia 17. One more mandate went to Rodina and four to self-nominated candidates. According to the Central Election Commission, 46 participants in the invasion of Ukraine were elected to the new Duma.

Separately, PACE expressed concern over the humanitarian situation in the occupied town of Oleshky in the Kherson region. Sabotage, arson and assassination attempts linked to Russia should be treated as acts of state terrorism, the resolution proposes.

A second resolution concerns rulings by the European Court of Human Rights. The assembly holds that Russia is obliged to comply with the court's judgments on violations committed before September 16, 2022, and that this obligation does not lapse with time. According to Deutsche Welle, Russia's outstanding debt on awards ordered by the ECtHR exceeds 3.3 billion euros, including interest for late payment. Of that, 2.9 billion euros relates to individual cases, including 2.7 billion euros in the Yukos case, and more than 424 million euros to interstate cases concerning Georgia.

PACE proposes directing Russian assets frozen in European countries toward payments to Ukraine under two interstate cases against Russia. The assembly estimates that the sums of compensation could potentially reach billions, tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of euros.

To that end, it recommends creating a special financing mechanism under the auspices of the Council of Europe. The authors of the resolution describe the transfer of Russian assets to Ukraine as a lawful countermeasure under international law.

PACE also adopted an amendment on preserving the materials of 879 individual complaints against Russia whose examination the ECtHR terminated in September. The idea for the amendment emerged at a round table of Russia's Anti-War Committee, and its adoption was secured through the work of the PACE Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported. The earliest complaint was filed almost 20 years ago.

Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe in March 2022 over the war against Ukraine. On September 16 of that year it ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights. According to Deutsche Welle, almost 6,000 applications against Russia are pending before the ECtHR, a significant portion of which concern the war against Ukraine.