• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on the situation with the Council of the Baltic Sea States

28 February 2022 20:29
384-28-02-2022

On February 27, the Norwegian Presidency in the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) released a statement saying that continuing fair and trust-based cooperation in the Baltic was impossible due to "Russia's unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine," and cancelled the meeting of the CBSS Committee of Senior Officials, the council's main working body, which was scheduled to take place on February 28.

The Foreign Ministry cannot agree less with these assertions. What has happened resulted from the eight years during which the Ukrainian regime sabotaged the Minsk agreements, while civilians in Donbass continued to die at the hands of the Ukrainian army. Ukraine's Western curators, including some of the CBSS participants, have failed to take any meaningful steps to force Kiev to carry out these agreements.

It is worth noting that by acting in contravention of the consensus principles adopted by this organisation, the CBSS leadership refused to engage in an open discussion on the current situation. The decision to suspend interaction resulted from behind-the-scenes dealings initiated by several Western countries without taking Russia's opinion into consideration, despite the fact that Russia is a full member of the CBSS. By the same token, they left the work of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC) hanging in the air. We are certain that nothing good will come out of all this fuss the West and its supporters created in these Baltic structures.

The fact that over the 30 years of its existence the CBSS operated in a politics-free manner and outside of momentary considerations, while focusing on hands-on regional cooperation, has been the primary factor in ensuring its value and relevance. With the support of several other council members, the Norwegian Presidency decided to dismantle these fundamental principles. With these actions, our Baltic "partners" jeopardised the future of this useful forum by putting on the line the CBSS projects and its commitments to those involved in them. This was not our choice. The responsibility for dismantling the Baltic cooperation framework lies squarely on the conscience of those who demonstratively refused to engage in dialogue with Russia.

We call for heeding common sense. Drumming up anti-Russia hysteria and politicising the CBSS work, just like other regional Nordic cooperation frameworks, leads nowhere.