A practical joke with special rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, French deputy Jacques Maire, which the Russian "prankers" played allegedly on behalf of PACE Vice President, member of the Servant of the People faction Oleksandr Merezhko, will have consequences for the Russian side, Merezhko is convinced.

"Another 'masterpiece' of Russian jokers, which testifies to the fact that the Russian side got stuck in their jokes at the stage of the early 2000s. I think that my French colleague behaved very dignified during the conversation. By the way, Mr. Jacques Maire and I drank coffee and talked back in January, right after the phone call that he allegedly received from me. We are members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. Knowing a little the psychology of the French, I am sure that this idea will hurt the Russian side, which for ten years has lost the ability to think the situation at least several moves ahead," Merezhko said in a comment to the Interfax-Ukraine information agency.

In his opinion, this joke has a clearly defined purpose - probing the chances of launching the so-called "new complimentary procedure" in relation to the Russian Federation. Merezhko explained that it is about the prospects of the Russian side to meet with much more acute and systemic challenges on the platform of the Council of Europe than those that took place in the period of 2014-2019, when the Russian delegation was deprived of the right to vote in PACE and was forced to leave the indicated forum.

"This prospect makes Russians nervous and even hysterical. It is difficult to find other assessments of the ongoing Russian ultimatums about readiness to leave the Council of Europe," the parliamentarian said.

At the same time, Merezhko stressed that he, as PACE vice-chairman, and all members of the Ukrainian delegation, together with partners in the Baltic +, are doing everything possible to ensure that "the degree of attention to the representatives of the Russian side in PACE remains at a high level."

On March 11, Russian prankers Alexei Stolyarov (Lexus) and Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan) published on their YouTube channel a recording of a prank with the PACE special rapporteur Jacques Maire on the case of Russian blogger Alexei Navalny. The prankers called Maire on behalf of Merezhko regarding the alleged poisoning of the blogger. Judging by the video released to the public, the conversation took place during the PACE session at the end of January.