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Friday, August 1, 2025

Parliamentarians from several countries left the room during Matviyenko’s speech in Geneva

Delegations from Ukraine as well as a number of European countries, including Germany, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, as well as the European Parliament, walked out of the session hall of the World Conference of Speakers of Parliaments in Geneva on 30 July in protest during a speech by Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko.

“I left the hall because I will not work as a mass audience in spreading the lies on which the criminal Kremlin regime stands”, Czech lower house speaker Markéta Pekarova-Adamová wrote.

The Lithuanian delegation said it boycotted the Russian representative’s speech, “firmly opposing the presence of the aggressor country.”

Matviyenko, commenting on the actions of the protesters, called them” mosquito bites “and “clowns.”

Matviyenko, at the head of the Russian delegation, arrived in Switzerland on 28 July, despite being on the country’s sanctions list. She is attending the events of the International Organisation of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Switzerland has joined the sanctions imposed by the EU against Russia, and Matviyenko is on the list of sub-sanctioned persons. The country, however, does not restrict entry to its territory to participants in the activities of international organisations headquartered in Switzerland. The Inter-Parliamentary Union said that its goal was the development of democracy and peace and promised to discuss the issue of deported Ukrainian children with the Russian delegation.

Valentina Matvienko, as well as the chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Leonid Slutsky, the deputy chairman of the State Duma, Pyotr Tolstoy, and seven other members of the Russian delegation arrived in Switzerland to take part in the work of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. This event runs from 29 to 31 July.

Matviyenko is participating in the 15th summit of women presidents of parliaments. She made a speech at one of the discussions in support of Russia’s SWO in Ukraine and said that Russia was forced to intervene to stop the bloodshed after shelling peaceful neighbourhoods in Donbas.

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