Russia and the OSCE

According to the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, approved in 2016 ^[1] , Russia is interested in strengthening the role and authority of the OSCE, increasing the relevance of this organization in international and European affairs ^[2] .

Priority areas of Russia's activity in the OSCE:

• compliance with the principle of the indivisibility of security, compliance by all participating States with the obligation not to strengthen their security at the expense of others
• combating transnational threats, including terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime, strengthening security in the use of information and communication technologies;
• integration of integration processes, the use of the OSCE to establish dialogue between various integration associations;
• protection of the linguistic, educational and religious rights of compatriots, protection of traditional values ​​and children's rights, counteraction to neo-Nazism and aggressive nationalism, attempts to falsify history, discrimination of Christians and Muslims;
• reform of the OSCE in order to correct geographical and functional imbalances in its work, streamlining the election observation system, establishing order and transparency in financial, personnel and project activities ^[2] .

Russia does not participate in the activities of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration within the OSCE (Conciliation and Arbitration within the OSCE) ^[3] .

Russia is represented in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly by fifteen out of 323 delegates (5 members of the Federation Council and 10 State Duma deputies) ^[4] .

The representative of Russia S. A. Dzakhaev holds the post of Deputy Secretary General of the Assembly. The head of the Russian delegation is Deputy Chairman of the State Duma P.O. Tolstoy.

In July 2004, at the initiative of Russia, the Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution on national minorities containing recommendations addressed to Latvia and Estonia ^[5] .

In 2009, the resolution of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on the reunification of divided Europe was described by the head of the Russian delegation as an abuse of history ^[6] .

In 2012, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution “The rule of law in Russia: the case of Sergei Magnitsky ” ^[7] .

In 2014-2019, the Parliamentary Assembly annually adopted resolutions criticizing the actions of the Russian Federation in relations with Ukraine ^{[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]} .

On the Russian initiative, the Parliamentary Assembly adopted the following resolutions: on the installation of video cameras on civilian aircraft and the access of parliamentarians to OSCE events (2016), on combating terrorism and countering Christian and Islamophobia (2017).

In 2018, the annual session of the OSCE PA was held in Berlin from July 7 to 11. The parliamentary assembly included three resolutions in the final declaration, which the Russian delegation considers “openly hostile”: on the violation of human rights in Russia and, in particular, in Crimea and on the decade of the armed conflict in South Ossetia. These resolutions call on the Russian authorities to refuse to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, “stop the eradication of education in the Ukrainian language” in Crimea and repeal a number of laws, in particular on “undesirable organizations” and foreign agents. At the same time, the assembly supported the Russian resolution “On the interconnectedness and integration of integration processes in the OSCE region” ^{[14] [15]} .

Russia, within the framework of the OSCE and in cooperation with this organization, participates in a number of mediation formats for the settlement of regional conflicts:

• together with the United States and France, Russia co-chairs the OSCE Minsk Group to resolve the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh ^[16] ;
• in the “5 + 2” format for a Transnistrian settlement, Russia acts as a guarantor and mediator of the peace process;
• Together with the OSCE, Russian representatives are promoting a direct dialogue between Kiev and the Donbass in the Contact Group for Conflict Resolution in Eastern Ukraine . Since July 2014, the OSCE Observer Group has been working in Russia at the Donetsk and Gukovo border crossings on the Russian-Ukrainian border;
• Russia participates in the Geneva discussions on security and stability in the Transcaucasus, contributing, together with the OSCE, to a dialogue between Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia ^[2] .

The general political declarations following the results of the meetings of the OSCE Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, which take place at the end of each year, after 2002, have never been adopted ^[17] .

In July 2004, a joint statement by the CIS countries was adopted in Moscow accusing the organization of “double standards practice” and “unwillingness to take into account the realities and peculiarities of individual states” ^[18] .

In 2005, the Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution on Abkhazia criticizing Russia ^[19] , and S. Lavrov criticized the OSCE’s election monitoring activities ^[20] .

In 2006, at a meeting of the OSCE Foreign Ministers Council, Russian Minister Lavrov announced the possibility of Russia leaving the organization ^[18] ; in 2007, Deputy Minister A. Grushko announced a reduction in Russia's contributions to the organization’s budget ^[21] .

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights ( ODIHR ) monitored a series of elections in Russia ^[22] . In the State Duma elections in 2007 and the president in 2008, ODIHR observers were absent ^[23] . At the end of 2007, Russia initiated the ODIHR reform project, and after rejecting it, it proposed to cut the budget of the Bureau ^[24] . Disputes were followed by OSCE observation of the 2011 Duma elections. ^[25]

At the 2011 OSCE summit, Russia and a group of other countries did not allow the adoption of the “Declaration on Fundamental Freedoms in the Digital Age” (on Internet freedom) ^{[26] [27]} .

In June 2018, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly published a final report on the results of the observation of the presidential elections in the Russian Federation (March 18, 2018). Observers again criticized the lack of real competition in the elections. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the report “another evidence of political commitment” by the ODIHR ^[28] .

In November 2018, at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council, Iceland made a statement on behalf of the delegations of 16 OSCE countries, “concerned about violations and violations of rights in Chechnya.” As early as August 30, they sent a letter to the Russian authorities asking them to provide the necessary information on these cases, but did not receive substantive answers. Referring to the Moscow document of the OSCE Conference on the Human Dimension, the delegations that initiated the request insist on the creation of an expert mission, which would establish the facts of violations and provide advice to Moscow and the international community on possible solutions to the problems ^{[29] [30] [31] [32]} . The Russian Foreign Ministry said that "these actions are dictated by the desire to strengthen the unleashed anti-Russian campaign before the meeting in Milan" ^[33] .

The Russian authorities accuse the OSCE that the organization uses double standards in the field of human rights, and also does not pay enough attention to problems with media freedom in Ukraine, the actions of the Ukrainian authorities, "continuing the line to disrupt the implementation of the Minsk agreements" to resolve the situation in the Donbass, as well as encouraging at the legislative level a massive violation of linguistic, educational, religious rights and freedoms ^[34] .

In December 2018, at a meeting of the OSCE Foreign Ministers Council in Milan, Russia was criticized for the incident in the Strait of Kerch and "human rights violations in the Chechen Republic." In particular, Federica Mogherini called the incident in the Kerch Strait “the consequence of the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia” and called on the Russian authorities to release the detained Ukrainian ships and sailors, as well as to ensure “free passage through the Kerch Strait in accordance with international law” ^[35] . The meeting participants rejected all draft resolutions prepared by Russian diplomats - on combating terrorism, enhancing the role of the OSCE in addressing drug trafficking issues, protecting the linguistic and educational rights of national minorities, as well as on the “need to reaffirm previous agreements on ensuring free access to media information and the public ” ^[36] .

Question of the Russian military presence in Transnistria

In 1999, a declaration was adopted at the OSCE Istanbul Summit, which welcomed the commitment of Russia to withdraw troops from Moldova (Transnistria) by the end of 2002, where they are part of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces, and Georgia. In 2002, the OSCE political declaration in Porto was signed only after a compromise version of the text of the final document was adopted, in which the phrase “Russia undertakes to withdraw <troops from Moldova and Georgia>” was replaced by “Russia intends” ^[37] .

In 2003, in Maastricht, US Secretary of State Colin Powell demanded that the declaration mention that Russia must comply with the 1999 Istanbul agreements. Russia in response blocked the document ^[37] .

In 2004, the session in Sofia took place at the height of the Orange Revolution, ended with a verbal skirmish between Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and the final document was not signed ^[37] .

In December 2005, the meeting of the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers in Ljubljana also ended in failure: the participants were unable to accept the final declaration as a result of the conflict between Russia and the rest of the OSCE members (with the exception of Belarus), requiring Moscow to withdraw troops from Transnistria and condemning it for the draft law non-profit organizations ^[37] .

• Putin's Munich speech

• Representation of the Russian Federation to the OSCE