On 3 December 2020, a two-day meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council started in Tirana (Albania).

It is the main OSCE annual event, which is taking place online this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In his statement, Dmytro Kuleba informed the Foreign Ministers of the OSCE participating States and Partners for Co-Operation about Ukraine’s position on the key events of 2020 in the OSCE area and their impact on the European security.

According to Dmytro Kuleba, today the OSCE as a security organization should focus on the conflicts resolution and mitigation of their consequences for the everyday lives of people.

He noted that the Russian armed aggression against Ukraine, which in particular flagrantly violates the OSCE principles and Russia’s commitments within the OSCE, remains of the highest priority among the security challenges. Minister stressed that “We will never accept the violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity within the internationally recognized borders. Russia must stop its aggression against Ukraine, including by withdrawing its troops and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine and fully implementing its commitments under the Minsk agreements”.

Dmytro Kuleba assured that Ukraine remains committed to the peaceful resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, having actively demonstrated that throughout the year 2020 in practice, both in the Normandy format and in the Trilateral Contact Group.

“We need to restore respect for the basic OSCE principles and commitments. We must maintain pressure on Russia to make it change its behavior”, Minister emphasized.

The Head of the Ukrainian foreign policy ministry singled out an especially important role played by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, which continues to register the illegal military activities of Russia in the temporarily occupied parts of Donbas: “The SMM observers continue registering the most modern Russian weapon systems in the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The SMM UAVs keep spotting illegal crossings of the military vehicles from Russia into the sovereign territory of Ukraine. Russia persistently obstructs this monitoring”.

The Minister has also recalled this year’s Chairmanship of Ukraine in the OSCE Forum for Security Cooperation, which provided a unique opportunity to draw additional attention to the ongoing militarization by Russia of the temporarily occupied Crimea and the Azov-Black sea region.

Dmytro Kuleba presented to the OSCE participating States the “Crimean Platform” initiative, aimed at coordinating international efforts to de-occupy Crimea, and urged the Russian side to demonstrate its will to resolve the conflict, including within the framework of the Normandy Format and the TCG.

In the context of appointment of new heads of structures and institutions of the OSCE, including Secretary General, High Commissioner on National Minorities, Representative on Freedom of the Media and Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the Ukrainian side stressed the necessity to ensure independent and impartial implementation of their important mandates.