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COPENHAGEN, 21 February 2022 – Responding to the deteriorating security situation in eastern Ukraine and indications of military build-ups that raise concerns over an escalation of the conflict, the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Swedish parliamentarian Margareta Cederfelt, and OSCE PA Secretary General Roberto Montella today expressed deep concern and reiterated the PA’s support for continued high-level dialogue.
“We are extremely worried by the continued escalation of violence in eastern Ukraine, including news of intensified shelling of civilian areas,” said President Cederfelt. “After seeing media reports of civilians fleeing the area and military mobilizations, we urge in the strongest possible terms that parties refrain from provocative acts that could escalate the crisis. The lives and future of the people who live in the regions affected by the conflict are the guiding motive of our engagement in the international community efforts to resolve this crisis.”
“There is only one acceptable way to resolve the crisis in and around Ukraine, and that is through honest dialogue based on the fundamental principles shared by all parties of the Helsinki Final Act – including full respect for all countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity,” SG Montella said. “We urge continued pursuit of diplomacy, and recommitment to resolving differences by fully implementing the Minsk agreements in good faith. All necessary measures must be taken to avoid full-scale war and to resolve the conflict that has already claimed 14,000 lives in the Donbas region.”
Cederfelt and Montella reiterated the PA’s support for the diplomatic efforts of the OSCE Polish Chairmanship, and urged utilizing all of the OSCE’s risk reduction tools, including the transparency-building mechanisms of the OSCE’s Vienna Document and the Trilateral Contact Group. They also highlighted the role of parliamentary diplomacy and said that the OSCE PA will continue to facilitate dialogue. They reiterated the Assembly’s support for the work of more than 1,300 OSCE women and men who serve in Ukraine to observe and report in an impartial, objective way on the developments on the ground and to facilitate dialogue. They also reiterated the Assembly’s consistent support to the restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.
OSCE PA Special Representative on Disinformation and Propaganda Oscar Mina (San Marino) added that the increasingly hostile and inflammatory rhetoric undermines diplomatic efforts to foster peace and stability. “I condemn the use of intimidation and disinformation campaigns and call on everyone to cease their propaganda campaigns at the expense of civilians,” Mina said.
The crisis in and around Ukraine is expected to feature prominently at the OSCE PA's Winter Meeting later this week. Hundreds of OSCE parliamentarians will gather for the hybrid Winter Meeting that will include a plenary debate on the theme Security Guarantees and the Indivisibility of Security in Europe: Role of the OSCE.
