Ukraine's parliament speaker says that it is unacceptable to have "agents of Putin's hybrid war" as part of an international mission.

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, Andriy Parubiy has signed a letter addressing President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Liliane Maury Pasquier to disinvite a PACE observation mission at early parliamentary elections in Ukraine.

"There cannot be any representatives of the aggressor country, Russia, among international observers, as they will not be observers, but agents of Putin's hybrid war," Parubiy said in a statement posted on Facebook on Tuesday, July 2.

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According to him, Russia's impact on the Ukrainian elections is in no way acceptable.

Parubiy also shared a photocopy of the letter sent to the PACE President. It says that Paruby is forced to cancel his invitation for international observers from PACE to monitor the snap parliamentary elections in Ukraine taking into account the situation around the reinstatement of Russia's parliamentary delegation at the PACE without significant progress in the implementation by Russia of seven PACE resolutions.

As UNIAN reported, the PACE in April 2014 deprived the Russian delegation of the right to vote and excluded its representatives from all of the Assembly's governing bodies over the annexation of Crimea. In this regard, Russia has not paid contributions to the Council of Europe since June 2017. Many PACE members and politicians considered such actions of Russia blackmail.

On June 25, 2019, the PACE adopted a resolution titled: "Strengthening the decision-making process of the Parliamentary Assembly concerning credentials and voting." The document was supported by 118 parliamentarians, 62 voted against with 10 abstentions. In connection with this decision, the mechanism for imposing sanctions, which had been in force at the PACE before, was canceled.

On June 26, 2019, the PACE supported a resolution approving the credentials of the Russian delegation without imposing any sanctions. Some 116 parliamentarians voted for the corresponding resolution, 62 voted against and 15 abstained.

The delegations of Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine to the PACE decided to leave the summer session ahead of schedule in protest of the reinstatement of the Russian delegation.

The early parliamentary elections in Ukraine are scheduled for July 21.