Ukraine's delegation decided not to attend the PACE's autumn session / ©Council of Europe

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Dmytro Kuleba has hailed Ukraine's delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

"I think there was an attempt that made sense and had meaning before the meeting, but our delegation did not cave in to pressure. They demonstrated they had the guts, had enough nerve. The delegation did not go," he told Radio Ukraine in an interview.

Read alsoPACE leaders to arrive in Kyiv soon for consultations – MP

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"And, as far as I know, the head of the delegation left [for Strasbourg] to conduct informal consultations. Here, for me, the main signal is that the Ukrainian parliament did not lose the nerve, held their ground and did not follow the manipulators who were seeking the break-up of the parliament," Kuleba said.

According to him, the very people who brought the Russian Federation back to the PACE without making it fulfil any obligations and conditions were trying to put pressure on the Ukrainian delegates, forcing them into giving up their stand on this matter.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the delegation of Ukraine to the PACE officially refused to participate in the organization's autumn session over the Russian Federation's return. The PACE on June 26, 2019, lifted sanctions from Russia, which were in effect since April 2014 over the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea. All the powers of the Russian delegation to the PACE were reinstated in full. After this, the delegations of Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine decided to leave the PACE summer session ahead of schedule. One of the arguments for the return of Russia to the PACE was the fact that Russian citizens need to have access to the European Court of Human Rights to be able to protect their rights.