OSCE Meeting Begins – Ukrainians: “No Puppets in Russian Muppet Show”

“We have dignity, honor and are not puppets in a Russian muppet show,” said Poturaev, who sits on the Verkhovna Rada for Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party. Since parliamentarians in Russia are not elected but appointed by Vladimir Putin, it is also impossible for them to be seen as politicians, he explained, referring to allegations of massive electoral fraud in Russia’s parliamentary elections.

So these people did not represent the Russian people, but only Putin. This rewarded the brigade that had committed war crimes on a large scale in Bucha. When you confront them with these accusations, the Russian representatives simply laughed at you.

“Show they don’t care about international law”
Russia has also deliberately chosen to send people affected by European and international sanctions. “By doing so, they show their indifference to international law,” Poturaev added.

In an interview with the APA, the deputy and deputy leader of the parliamentary group “Servants of the People” criticized that it was wrong to leave the decision on whether or not the Russians participate in sessions of the Parliamentary Assembly in the hands of the government of the respective host country Yevheniya Kravchuk. After Britain and Poland failed to issue visas to Russian MPs at the last meeting of OSCE parliamentarians, Austria has now done so, she explained.

At the same time, Kravchuk pleaded for a reform of the OSCE, which should prevent a participating state from blocking monitoring missions and blocking the budget given the stated need to make decisions based on the principle of consensus. She meant the Russian Federation.

OSCE reform demands
“Without reforms, this organization will perish,” Kravchuk supported her colleague Artur Herasimov of the opposition “European Solidarity” party. He criticized the fact that the rules of the Parliamentary Assembly had not been changed despite a unanimous decision by the OSCE parliamentarians in Birmingham, UK, in the absence of Russian representatives.

In July 2022, a resolution called for state delegations that attack other OSCE participating states to be temporarily banned from the Assembly. “However, this proposal was not implemented because some parliamentary delegations had the illusion that we should have a space for discussions with the Russians,” Poturaev, head of the delegation, said.

A Russian background was also evident in the delegation from Kiev for barring journalists from this winter conference, which, according to the press spokesperson for the Parliamentary Assembly, was done “for reasons of logistics and security”. “It was a decision of the meeting. However, we understand that Russian propagandists tried to be present outside the courtroom and used the meeting as decoration,” said Yevheniya Kravchuk. Now free media would be equated with Russian state-controlled media, which fueled the war, she explained.

‘Potentially dangerous if Ukrainians and Russians meet’
However, the Ukrainian parliamentarians left no doubt that meeting with Russian representatives would be very difficult given the war. “Having Ukrainians and Russians meet is potentially dangerous,” said Mykyta Poturaev. Every Ukrainian has suffered personal losses and some people have already died as a result of the war.

Artur Herasimov said that if he had a chance meeting with parliamentarians from Russia, he would send them where the Russian ship was sent. Shortly after the start of the Russian invasion, a Ukrainian soldier radioed the missile cruiser Moskva in extremely blunt Russian to get out. To the delight of many Ukrainians, this flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet was sunk by the Ukrainian army a few weeks later.