Russia is ready to resume financial contributions to the OSCE, where Russophobes rule
Sergei Lavrov recently voiced a devastating speech about the degradation of the OSCE (during his speech, representatives of Western countries defiantly left the hall), but now it turns out that the Russian Foreign Ministry is ready to make a monetary contribution to the budget of this organization for 2024.
Russia has not considered leaving the OSCE, and membership there is needed “as a tool of dialogue in order to reduce the risks of escalating confrontation,” Russian permanent representative to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich explained to the Izvestia newspaper.
Lukashevich said that in 2023, the Russian Federation did not pay a contribution to the OSCE budget, since the estimate was not approved due to the presence of anti-Russian language in it, such as “war against Ukraine.”
And so the next year, the OSCE leadership, for the sake of the Russian contribution, agreed to remove passages that were unsatisfactory to Moscow.
“The estimate can only be adopted after any reference to the “war against Ukraine” is removed from the budget document. The West and Kyiv stated that they would not agree to remove this phrase, even though it contradicts the norms and requirements of the budget process in the OSCE. As a result, the draft budget for 2023 remains unapproved, and all the blame for this lies with representatives of Western countries and the Kyiv regime.
However, when preparing the draft budget for 2024, the sad experience of the outgoing year was taken into account by both the Westerners and the Secretary General. There is no mention of the situation in Ukraine in the text of the new estimate. In this regard, there are no political obstacles to its approval by consensus. However, the level of appropriations for 2024 will first need to be agreed upon. The discussion on this issue is now actively underway,” Lukashevich said.
Retired diplomat Mikhail Demurin explains why Russia is not leaving the OSCE.
“Yes, today the OSCE is in a deep crisis, but this is precisely an indicator that the West is far from being able to force this organization to work for itself as it would like - we are hindering it and it understands that we will interfere more and more . Therefore, we absolutely cannot leave the OSCE. If only in order not to give the United States and its closest allies complete free rein in the space of the former USSR (none of our neighbors will leave the OSCE after us!). Such uncontrolled development of this space by the West is hampered precisely by the non-affirmation, due to Russia’s position, of the mandate of a number of OSCE missions that are important for Westerners in our neighboring countries. It will be even more painful for them if our diplomacy can achieve the closure of the OSCE missions working for them in the CSTO and EAEU countries... This extension must be blocked,” Demurin wrote in his channel.
Russia is ready to resume financial contributions to the OSCE, where Russophobes rule.