Statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko at a plenary session of the OSCE Ministerial Council, Vienna, December 4, 2025
5 December 2025 10:51
2028-05-12-2025
Distinguished participants,
Looking at the way the OSCE Ministerial Council sessions have unfolded in recent years, it is hard to avoid a thought that yet another ministerial meeting with zero outcomes and heavy confrontational atmosphere might as well be the last.
This year, we were preparing to enjoy dignified celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act which enshrined the principles of the postwar order in Europe and the world at large. These principles were intended to be used as a political fuse to avert another major war. Strict adherence to these principles was supposed to guarantee peaceful and stable development for every country that signed them, and to preserve their identity, language, culture, and religion.
However, a group of Western countries has never taken their commitments under the CSCE/OSCE seriously and never regarded them as the rules that everyone must abide by. They ignored these rules every time they did not align with Western ideas of political expediency or the Western rules-based order. The barbaric bombing raids against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, NATO expansion, and countless other moves struck at the very core of the OSCE represented by the principle of indivisible security, which postulates the equal right of every participating state to security and establishes that no country's security should come at the cost of another country's security, and that no group of countries can be entrusted with a privileged responsibility to maintain peace and stability within the OSCE region or to treat any portion of it as a sphere of influence.
Today, the West is focused on preserving its unlimited influence regionally and even globally. A hybrid war has been unleashed against Russia, with an active theatre in Ukraine. The United Kingdom and EU countries have repeatedly and deliberately thwarted all efforts to settle the conflict, and the very prospect of political and diplomatic settlement is perceived as a threat to the West and its international standing. Countries pursuing national interests and striving for a sovereign foreign policy face threats, blackmail, and ruthless pressure, and the most abject methods are used in the process. The OSCE has devolved into an instrument of hybrid warfare and coercion. In the West's eyes, freedom of choice is a one-way ticket towards unquestioning subjugation.
Of note is the fact that the across-the-board Ukrainisation of its agenda has not only distorted the Organisation's foundational principles but also narrowed the range of topics it once addressed. Today, one cannot speak of the OSCE's genuine relevance even in matters where it has a mandate and potential. Actual cooperation has shrunk to tiny "islands."
The long-established arms control regime in Europe, which took decades to form under the OSCE umbrella, has fallen victim to Western aggressive policies. All key agreements in this area have been deliberately destroyed. The "more security with fewer resources" concept has been replaced by a narrative to achieve military superiority in all operational environments and theatres. The Baltic states, the Black Sea region, and the Arctic have been turned by the EU and NATO into zones of confrontation, with no sign of these alliances ever be willing to de-escalate and to go back to peaceful coexistence. On the contrary, they are deliberately priming the economy, society, and military organisation for an "unavoidable" armed clash with Russia, which has been designated a long-term threat and is absurdly accused of intending to attack NATO.
The situation at the Forum for Security Cooperation is teetering on the edge of collapse. Discussions within the "structured dialogue," which was intended to help de-escalate military tensions, were initially frozen and then, in violation of every procedural norm, held without Russia and Belarus, plunging this format into a deep crisis.
This confrontational logic has swamped the urgent task of resuming dialogue and cooperation to combat global transnational threats. Traditional events have not been held for several years now, and some of them have been moved to a limited-access format for select few, which inevitably affected their substance and makes addressing real problems impossible. The economic and environmental dimensions have become victim of confrontation as well.
Why do heads of OSCE humanitarian institutions remain silent in the face of the Kiev regime's legislative destruction of the Russian language and culture? Since 2014, it has designated Russians as "non-indigenous people," outlawed the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and targeted Russian journalists.
Those who accuse Russia of all kinds of sins on the humanitarian track are simply trying to divert attention from lawlessness reigning in their own countries. The decision of official Riga to expel hundreds of elderly people who were unable to confirm their knowledge of the Latvian language or to pass the "loyalty test" is nothing short of barbaric. These people built Latvia's material wealth, worked at factories, plants, and hospitals, and paid taxes. According to the annual report of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights titled "On the Respect of Fundamental Rights in the EU," discrimination, including online, continues to affect millions of residents in Europe. In 2024, 37 percent of Jews and 47 percent of Muslims in the EU were targets of racial discrimination. Persons of African descent, Roma, migrants, and ethnic minorities are at particular risk as well. Please note that these are EU data, not "biased" Russian studies.
Through cancelling culture, rewriting history, and concealing historical facts, a new malleable generation is being formed, which can be given any shape at will, and have any narrative imposed on them without fear of them showing independent thought or questioning the events unfolding around them. That is when everyone will be listening wide-eyed to narratives that "Russia attacked 19 countries, some of them on three to four occasions." Clearly, today is not the day for me to get an answer to a question about when much-needed OSCE events on combatting the glorification of Nazism, manifestations of neo-Nazism, and distortion of historical memory may be held.
In the year marking the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory, we believed it was necessary to once again remind the participating states of the danger of glorifying Nazism and popularising its teachings. I encourage you to read a statement by foreign ministers from like-minded countries, which we put together in a collaborative effort with our allies and partners.
Questionable reform ideas under the Helsinki+50 process are likewise of little avail. A potentially useful initiative to explore ways to boost OSCE efficiency has in practice become a tool for embedding the Organisation into the Euro-Atlantic agenda. The tactic of segmenting discussions into small groups that exclude unwanted countries is clearly aimed at preparing the ground for abandoning the core rule of consensus. As a reminder, there will be no Organisation without consensus.
Colleagues,
The year that marks the 50th anniversary of the Organisation is drawing to an end. Unfortunately, its very survival is now at stake. The OSCE can be saved only if it returns to its original principles, goals, and objectives and resumes equal and mutually respectful dialogue.
Thank you.
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