Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania said on Tuesday their foreign ministers would boycott an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) meeting in North Macedonia this week, which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov plans to attend, Reuters reported.

It would be Lavrov’s first visit to an OSCE meeting since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, prompting widespread Western sanctions.

The meeting of 57 members of the OSCE should take place on Thursday and Friday in the capital of North Macedonia, Skopje.

A Russian diplomat said he would take part in the meeting if Bulgaria, North Macedonia’s eastern neighbor, opened its airspace to him. Lavrov noted that some Western countries have asked to meet with him, but there will be no negotiations with the United States.

Bulgaria’s airspace is closed to Russian aircraft as part of European Union sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“The Ukrainian delegation will not take part in the OSCE ministerial meeting at the level of the Minister of Foreign Affairs,” wrote the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleg Nikolenko on Facebook.

Nikolenko stated that Russia abused the rules of consensus in the organization, resorted to “blackmail and open threats”, and also imprisoned three Ukrainian representatives of the OSCE for 500 days.

“Under such conditions, the presence of a Russian delegation… at the ministerial level for the first time since the beginning of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine will only deepen the crisis into which Russia has pushed the OSCE,” he said.

Baltic solidarity

In a show of solidarity with Kyiv, the foreign ministers of the three Baltic countries later issued a statement saying that they would also not participate in the meeting if Lavrov was present.

His participation “risks legitimizing the aggressor Russia as a legitimate member of our community of free nations by downplaying the heinous crimes committed by Russia,” they said.

Senior US diplomat Anthony Blinken will attend the meeting as planned, a senior State Department official told reporters, adding that it would show solidarity with the hosts and the OSCE, which the official called “a really important institution for dealing with political and human rights issues.” throughout Europe”.

Russia has demonstrated “obstructionist behavior” in the OSCE, blocking activities in Ukraine and preventing Estonia from running for the presidency of the organization in 2024, said a joint statement by Margus Tsakhkn of Estonia, Kristianis Karins of Latvia and Gabrielius Landsbegis of Lithuania.

In the past, Russia has accused the West of undermining the OSCE through NATO’s “reckless expansion” into Central and Eastern Europe.