Russia’s outspoken foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, Friday accused the Council of Europe of being a “Russophobic” instrument serving Western interests.
“Due to the Westerners’ Russophobic activity, this structure has lost its reason for being,” she said. The pan-European rights body, which expelled Russia on Wednesday a day after Moscow said it would leave, had “turned into an obedient instrument of the European Union, NATO and their satellites”, she added in a statement.