A group of European lawmakers walked out in protest during a speech on Wednesday by Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko at the World Conference of Speakers of Parliament in Geneva,
The Moscow Times reports.
Matviyenko, who is under EU and Swiss sanctions, was speaking at the morning general debate at the UN office in Geneva when a group of EU lawmakers “demonstratively left the room.”
“I walked out during the speech by Valentina Matviyenko … because I refuse to be a prop for the lies on which the criminal Kremlin regime is built,” Czech lawmaker Markéta Pekarová Adamová, who leads her country’s lower house of parliament, wrote on Instagram.
German Bundestag President Julia Klöckner also joined the walkout. In a statement, she denounced “cynical attempts to distort history and reverse the roles of perpetrator and victim,” adding that Germany “continues to stand firmly on Ukraine’s side.”
The World Conference of Speakers of Parliament in Geneva runs from July 29 to 31.
