Sawt Falasteen - Russia, Ukraine to send top diplomats to OSCE summit in Malta

The trip marks Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's first to an EU member since the start of the conflict in February 2022, and comes as US President-elect Donald Trump gears up to take office, promising to quickly end the fighting.

Ukraine had boycotted the same event -- the meeting of foreign ministers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) -- in North Macedonia last year over Lavrov's attendance.

It was not clear whether the diplomats would be present in the same room or whether there would be face-to-face contact.

Lavrov is set to use the December 5-6 event to lambast the OSCE's "institutional crisis", Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told journalists in Moscow.

The veteran Russian diplomat's last trip to the EU was in December 2021 when he visited Stockholm, also for an OSCE meeting, Russian media reported.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga will visit from December 4-5 for a "series of bilateral talks with his counterparts from Ukraine's partner countries", his ministry said.

Ukraine's ex-foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, as well as top diplomats from Baltic states boycotted last year's meeting in protest.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, an ally of Ukraine, said there would be "no talks" with Lavrov in Malta and questioned why Russia was still allowed to be part of the OSCE.

- 'Appendage' -

Russia's foreign ministry said Lavrov would hold a series of bilateral meetings in Malta, without specifying with whom.

Kyiv has called for Russia to be expelled from the body, which was founded to ease East-West tensions during the Cold War.

Speaking at the summit last year, Lavrov said the OSCE was being "turned into an appendage of NATO and the EU".

Russia's foreign ministry returned to that theme on Wednesday.

"The current institutional crisis of the OSCE has resulted from the destructive actions of a number of Western countries that are using this platform for their own interests," it said.

Arguing that the body had been "Ukrainianised", it called for closer cooperation with Moscow-led groups such as the BRICS club of developing nations.

Zakharova also said that her own visa to attend the Malta summit had been "annulled" at the last minute. She said that the organisers had told Moscow that the decision had been "due to circumstances beyond their control".

The OSCE sends observers to conflicts and elections around the world, as well as running programmes to combat human trafficking and ensure media freedom.

But since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, it has struggled to operate, as Russia has vetoed several major decisions, which require consensus.

Russian lawmakers earlier this year voted to suspend participation in the body's parliamentary assembly, branding it anti-Russian and discriminatory.

K.Hassan--SF-PST