Russia Urges Ukraine Talks With Protesters Under OSCE

Urges Western Nations to Endorse OSCE Talks

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is calling for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), tasked with reducing tensions in Ukraine, to hold talks between Ukraine’s interim government and the leaders of the eastern protest movement.

Lavrov insisted the talks would be a perfect fit for the OSCE’s mission, and a chance for Ukraine’s new government to hear the grievances of its various regions face-to-face.

He also called on Western nations to back such an OSCE move as a chance to establish a meaningful dialogue. So far, Ukrainian interim officials have spurned calls for talks with the protesters, and Western nations have demanded the protesters unilaterally surrender.

The OSCE’s involvement in Ukraine so far has been fairly minimal, with a handful of “monitors” dispatched to the eastern protest cities and several immediately captured by protesters as presumptive NATO spies.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.