During the session of the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), held on Friday morning, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE), Thorbjorn Jagland was asked to take a tough stance at the upcoming talks in Russia, head of the Verkhovna Rada delegation to the PACE, Volodymyr Ariev, has said.

"The PACE Bureau demanded from Jagland a tough position in the negotiations in Moscow and in general to sue the Russian Federation for failure to pay contributions. The atmosphere is changing. And it is changing through joint actions and synergy of Ukrainians in the Council of Europe," Ariev wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.

Summing up the results of the PACE plenary week, the head of the Ukrainian parliamentary delegation expressed the opinion that the "blitzkrieg scenario on [renewal of powers] of the Russian Federation in the PACE was broken by joint efforts."