Россия в ОБСЕ

(as of December 23, 2021)

Being a successor state to the USSR, the Russian Federation is one of the initiators of the Helsinki Process, sponsors of the 1975 Final Act and founders of the CSCE/OSCE.

Russia is interested in strengthening the OSCE’s role and authority, as well as enhancing its relevance in international and European affairs. Approved by the President of the Russian Federation in 2016, the Foreign Policy Concept sets forth this approach.

Russia views the following key topics as its main priorities regarding the OSCE:

-        compliance with the principle of indivisible security and ensuring that all member states honour their obligation not to strengthen their own security at the expense of others;

-        fighting transnational threats, including terrorism, drug trafficking, organised crime, as well as reinforcing security in information and communications technology;

-        aligning integration processes and using the OSCE as a platform for promoting dialogue between various integration associations;

-        defending language, educational and religious rights of compatriots, defending traditional values and children’s rights, countering neo-Nazism and aggressive nationalism, attempts to falsify history, discrimination against Christians and Muslims;

-        reforming the OSCE to make up for the geographical and functional imbalances in its work, adopting an OSCE Charter, rules of procedure for its executive bodies, as well as better organising election monitoring, improving financial, staff-related and project activities and making them more transparent.

Russia regularly puts forward draft OSCE ministerial decisions and parliamentary resolutions on these and other matters. It was at Russia’s initiative that the OSCE Ministerial Council and the Permanent Council adopted decisions and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA) passed resolutions on fighting terrorism and drug trafficking, election-related matters and the OSCE reform.

The Russian Federation has a Permanent Mission to the OSCE in Vienna. Its Permanent Representative there is Alexander Lukashevich.

The OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation is a decision-making body on military matters, where Russia is represented by a Delegation to the Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control, headed by Konstantin Gavrilov.

Russia is proactive within the OSCE PA. Its delegation includes five senators from the Federation Council and ten State Duma deputies. It is headed by Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Pyotr Tolstoy. Within the assembly, Russia has initiated the adoption of the following resolutions: in 2016, on equipping civilian aircraft with video cameras and enabling parliamentarians to attend OSCE events; in 2017, on combatting terrorism and countering anti-Christian and anti-Muslim sentiments; and in 2018, on aligning integration processes across the OSCE region. In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic resulted in the cancellation of the annual and the summer sessions, while the winter session took place via videoconference. In 2021, OSCE PA also held its sessions via videoconference.

Russia carries out several OSCE projects on law enforcement. Since 2008, the All-Russian Advanced Training Institute of the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation in Domodedovo has been holding courses annually for training narcotics police officers from Afghanistan. Since 2016, Serbian narcotics police officers have been benefiting from training courses at the North-Western Professional Development Institute of the Federal Narcotics Service of Russia in St Petersburg. The Interior Ministry Institute in Voronezh has been training Serbian police officers on fighting cybercrime since 2018. On November 4-15, 2019, the Interior Ministry’s Siberian Institute of Law (Krasnoyarsk) held a course for members of Turkmenistan’s law enforcement agencies under the aegis of the OSCE. On December 9-20, 2019, the same institution trained members of Uzbekistan’s Interior Ministry on fighting drug trafficking. There was also a course on searching for and detecting weapons and explosives, also for members of Uzbekistan’s Interior Ministry, at the Rostov Service Dogs Training School, on February 3-22, 2020. Further training courses for foreigners had to be suspended until the end of 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Working within or in parallel with the OSCE, the Russian Federation has been involved in negotiating formats for settling several regional conflicts:

-        Together with the United States and France, Russia co-chairs the OSCE Minsk Group, to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

-        Within the 5+2 format for the Transnistria settlement, Russia acts as a guarantor and mediator in the peace process.

-        Together with the OSCE, Russian representatives facilitated direct dialogue between Kiev and Donbass within the Contact Group for the Peaceful Settlement of the Situation in Eastern Ukraine. From July 2014 until September 2021, the OSCE Observer Mission at the Russian Checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk worked on the Russian territory along the border with Ukraine.

-        Russia also takes part alongside the OSCE in the Geneva discussions for security and stability in the South Caucasus for promoting dialogue between Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The Foreign Ministry focuses on promoting Russians to senior positions within the OSCE institutions and missions. At this point, 57 Russians are working for the OSCE, including 13 in its Secretariat, 6 in humanitarian institutions and 38 on the ground in Central Asia, Western Balkans, as well as in the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (there are 29 representatives of Russia’s Interior Ministry among the SMM observers).

Russia pays an annual contribution to the OSCE of about EUR 7.7 million, including over EUR 5.5 million to the OSCE Unified Budget, which totals about EUR 138.2 million, and more than EUR 2 million to the OSCE SMM in Ukraine, which has a budget of EUR 108.9 million. The contributions are calculated based on the OSCE current scales of contributions according to which Russia contributes 6 percent to funding the Secretariat and OSCE institutions and 2.5 percent for its field missions.