Nadat de delegatieleider van Rusland in de Parlementaire Assemblee had verklaard dat Rusland 'demilitarisatie van Oekraïne' en 'een einde van het huidige regime' wil, zei Karimi het volgende:
"Dear Colleagues,
Europe is in war' is the headline of newspapers today. What a dark day for all of us!
It is a shame and a tragedy that Mr. Putin chooses a severe violation of international law and attacks - after months of denial - on Ukraine. This requires decisive condemnation, action and firm sanctions. The statement of Mr. Tolstoy ( the head of Russian delegation) this morning was very disturbing. Russia seeks nothing less than a regime change in Ukraine. This unilateral act of aggression is unacceptable. I call upon the Russian people: stop this madness! The Kremlin is not acting in their interest. And we have to express our solidarity with the people of Ukraine. Civilians will pay a heavy price. Humanitarian aid and generous European support for refugees is the least we can do.
Today's crisis, which is quickly evolving into a bloody war, shows that we should have been stronger in our responses earlier. Of course we protested when civil society structures were systematically destroyed in Russia, such as the ban on Memorial. And we protested when, one after another, opposition politicians, like Mr. Navalny, were poisoned, arrested, put in jail and mistreated. Obviously, we can fairly say now, those protests were too little and too late.
The enormous dependency on Russian gas and oil was obviously one of the reasons for European governments' hesitation for sanctions. It is good that the German government stopped the North stream 2 pipeline yesterday. However, it should have happened earlier.We have to learn our lessons and be firm in all three dimensions of security principles as we know them in the OSCE."
