OSCE Secretariat avoids direct answer on whether Russia kills civilians in Ukraine

According to Ukrinform's correspondent, this was stated during a press conference following the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers on Friday in Vienna.

One question from a journalist of the German news agency dpa referred to the fact that in his speech the day before, OSCE Secretary General Feridun Sinirlioglu spoke about the war in Ukraine without any mention of Russia and without referring to the OSCE's human dimension.

The journalist asked whether the Secretary General and his team have "an adequate understanding of the mandate of the OSCE and who started the conflict." The OSCE Secretary General did not attend the press conference; instead, the Deputy Head of Secretariat and Director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre, Catherine Ferron, was present. In her response, she noted that the OSCE consists of 57 participating states, and therefore "in order to keep everybody on board and to keep this platform, it may well be that we do not say everything on every single occasion."

"But I would invite you and other colleagues to have a look at what we're actually doing in Ukraine. I think maybe this is the time to look at what we do and not at what we say.," she added, before going on to describe in detail the current ways the OSCE is supporting Ukraine.

Later, during the press conference, the Ukrinform correspondent again raised the topic of the OSCE Secretary General avoiding mention of Russia as the aggressor and asked directly: "is the term, 'the Russian aggression against Ukraine' or 'Russia's war against Ukraine', convenient or inconvenient for the Secretariat? And what is your position? Is it Russia that is killing innocent civilians in Ukraine, or it's an abstract 'violence', as Secretary General says?"

However, she again avoided a direct answer and instead spoke about the practical work of the organization in Ukraine to address the consequences of the war and increase Ukraine's resilience – both institutional and societal.

"I think that speaks to what OSCE does and what OSCE's priority is," Ferron said.

As Ukrinform reported, OSCE Secretary General Feridun Sinirlioglu, during the opening of the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers in Vienna on Thursday, December 4, did not call Russia an aggressor state, did not indicate its responsibility for the war against Ukraine, and did not mention Russia's systemic violations of all principles of the Helsinki Final Act. Specifically, he spoke of the "war in Ukraine" as "an open wound in the heart of our continent" – without identifying who caused this wound and continues to try to expand it.

The OSCE Council of Ministers in December 2024 approved new leadership for the Organization, including the appointment of Turkish diplomat Feridun Sinirlioğlu as Secretary General.

During the opening of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly winter meeting in Vienna on February 20, Sinirlioğlu called for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine through diplomacy. In his speech, however, he did not mention Russia or the Russian nature of the war in Ukraine.

On March 11, the OSCE Secretary General visited Moscow, where he held frank and productive discussions with the Foreign Minister of the aggressor state, Sergey Lavrov. At a joint press conference with Lavrov, Sinirlioğlu referred to Russia as a very important partner within the OSCE and did not directly mention Russia's responsibility for the war against Ukraine.

On July 31, at a conference marking the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, OSCE Secretary General Feridun Sinirlioğlu also did not mention Russia as an aggressor state waging a war of aggression against Ukraine, nor did he directly point to Russia's violations of the principles established in this fundamental European security document.

In a comment to Ukrinform, Ukraine's Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, Yurii Vitrenko, also noted that the OSCE Secretariat tries to avoid showing the true nature of Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine and is very reluctant to use the term "Russian aggression against Ukraine."

Photo: crisisgroup.org