On November 30 – December 1, 2023, a meeting of foreign ministers of the OSCE member countries was held in the capital of North Macedonia. The presence of Russia has caused certain rumors. However, this international platform has become another place where Russia’s foreign policy received a sensitive blow: 36 countries at the OSCE Ministerial Council (these are members of the EU and 9 other countries) called on Russia to immediately end the war against Ukraine and completely withdraw all troops and equipment from Ukrainian territory, and during the speech of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, many diplomats and politicians left the meeting room.
We present to you the opinion of the Ukrainian politician, Oleksiy Goncharenko.
First of all, it is worth understanding how Russia got into the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting and why the almost two-year boycott of Russian top officials ended right now. This did not happen because of the Macedonian authorities’ sympathy for the Russians or the desire of European countries to return to the status quo. Russia got into the ministerial meeting through blackmail, blocking the work of the organization, in particular the election of the next chairman and the issue of the budget for the next year. In general, nothing new from the representatives of the aggressor country.
It was important for Russia to attend this meeting to show that somewhere in the civilized world they are still considered subjects. But in fact, Lavrov faced a wave of protests and demarches: the ministers sent assistants, deputies, and ambassadors instead of themselves, some expressed their protest, demonstratively left the hall, and some countries, such as the Baltic countries, expressed their protest in a joint statement, refusing to participate in a meeting What kind of subjectivity can we talk about when you speak in front of a half-empty hall?
It can be said that the meeting, the purpose of which was to overcome the crisis in the OSCE, provoked an even bigger crisis by allowing the Russian delegation to participate. At the same time, the reaction of our partners to Russia’s participation in the meeting shows the unequivocal nature of their position regarding Russia, and this is the best possible advocacy of Ukrainian interests in this situation.
Oleksiy Goncharenko,
Ukrainian politician, member of the Ukrainian parliament, member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Vice President of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
