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“Dear colleagues, frankly, when I got acquainted with Volodymyr Ariev’s report, who raised the very topical theme regarding the attacks against freedom of the journalists and mass media in Europe, I hoped that we are going to deal with unbiased assessments. As a former journalist, the violation against journalists is really very important for me, on which we should voice in our organisation. I hoped that Mr Ariev in his speech would refer to, for example, the closed Dozhd TV Company on political reasons in Ukraine, as well as the facts submitted by Mass Information Institute, according to which, only during eight months of last year in Ukraine 224 cases of impeding the journalists’ professional activities were registered that the authorities and certain persons sponsoring the power threaten the journalists, and that in Ukraine the law enforcement bodies watch out to sue criminal cases on those concrete cases. I sincerely expected that Ariev, “being a serious connoisseur of frozen conflicts” will not leave out the murder of the Ukrainian well-known journalist Pavel Sheremt in the centre of Kiev in July of last year, which, as the political scientist Alexey Garan assures has direct connection with the Ukrainian corrupted officials, to whom Sheremet was a deadly danger.

Instead of referring to this and such serious problems, Mr Ariev reserved himself the right to poke his nose into the problem of Nagorno Karabakh conflict, making inadmissible wordings and conclusions. To my impression, the author of the report used the theme of the freedom of press in Europe as a pretext for qualifying Nagorno Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, and the power of Artsakh separatists. Mr Ariev, obviously, you can’t sit still without sharing the laurels of the MPs of Luca Volonte, Robert Walter, Milica Marković and a number of other PACE MPs and you madly hurry to occupy their place. I will not advise you, because good days are not expected for them and Azerbiajan’s other lobbyists.

By the way, regarding the freedom of speech, in my opinion, at least, you have no right to speak about freedom of speech, you that on December 22 in the Rada of Ukraine with your speech did everything in order Rada will vote for the dismissal of our colleague Nadezhda Savchenko from PACE. You and your colleagues quited Batkivshina party and the Committee on National Security and Defense of Rada. In fact, you did it unanimously without any vote against. Really, what freedom of speech and thought! And what for? At least, for the fact that in Minsk Savchenko have met with the leaders of Luhansk and Donetsk to discuss the issues of the exchange of political prisoners.

So, you have no right to speak either about freedom of speech or human rights, moreover, about the issue of Nagorno Karabakh, the solution of which, fortunately, is not the competence of yours and persons like you.”