Western countries including the US assailed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov over the war in Ukraine on Thursday at an annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Malta.
Poland signed a $4-billion loan under the US’s Foreign Military Financing programme that will help finance the transformation of its armed forces, said the Polish defence minister on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled a requirement for all buyers of Russian gas to pay through Gazprombank, a presidential decree showed on Thursday, after the US targeted the state-controlled lender with sanctions.
Western states assail Russia’s Lavrov over Ukraine at OSCE meeting
Western countries including the US assailed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov over the war in Ukraine on Thursday at an annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Malta.
Ukraine dominated the foreign ministers’ meeting politically although envoys were also due to formally approve agreements on issues including senior staff positions at the security and rights body, where Western powers often accuse Russia of flouting human rights and other international norms.
“My message to the Russian delegation is the following: We are not taken in by your lies. We know what you’re doing. You’re trying to rebuild the Russian empire and we will not let you. We will resist you every inch of the way,” said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in a speech.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told the meeting that his country was continuing to fight for its right to exist.
“And the Russian war criminal at this table must know: Ukraine will win this right and justice will prevail,” he said.
Sikorksi, Sybiha and others left the room for Lavrov’s speech, as often happens at international meetings, and Lavrov was absent when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered his speech.
This was Lavrov’s first visit to a European Union member state since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow has often blamed the West for the war.
“I regret that our colleague Mr. Lavrov has left the room, not giving the courtesy to listen to us as we listened to his. And of course, our Russian colleague is very adept at drowning listeners in a tsunami of misinformation,” said Blinken in his speech to the meeting.
Lavrov and Blinken were not scheduled to meet.
The OSCE gathering of foreign ministers and other officials from 57 participating states in North America, Europe and Central Asia is overshadowed by the imminent return to the White House of Donald Trump, whose advisers are floating proposals to end the war that would cede large parts of Ukraine to Russia.
With Trump due to take office next month, Western powers reiterated their support for Ukraine and Russia renewed its criticism of the OSCE, which Lavrov said last year was “essentially being turned into an appendage of Nato and the European Union”.
In his speech, Lavrov likened the current situation to the Cold War, saying there was a greater risk of it becoming “hot”.
“We do not want to attack anyone. The United States ... are waging war against us by using the Ukrainian neo-Nazi forces. They supply them with weapons, they help them to use long-range weapons against our territory,” Lavrov told a news conference afterwards. Western states and Ukraine reject the Nazi analogy.
The OSCE is the successor to a body set up during the Cold War for the East and West to engage with each other. In recent years, especially since Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow has used what is in effect a veto each country has to block decisions.
Poland gets $4bn US loan for defence purchases
Poland signed a $4-billion loan under the US’s Foreign Military Financing programme that will help finance the transformation of its armed forces, said the Polish defence minister on Thursday.
“This is another proof of enormous trust and strong alliance between Poland and the United States of America,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz posted on X.
Kosiniak-Kamysz said that in total the US had provided Poland with more than $11-billion to finance armament programmes, including Patriot air defence systems and Apache helicopters.
Putin removes Gazprombank from payments for Russian gas exports
Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled a requirement for all buyers of Russian gas to pay through Gazprombank, a presidential decree showed on Thursday, after the US targeted the state-controlled lender with sanctions.
The US sanctions on Gazprombank, imposed last month, prevent the lender from handling any new energy-related transactions, potentially blocking how European customers can pay for Russian gas.
Putin issued the initial decree in March 2022, forcing the buyers of Russian gas to pay for deliveries via Gazprombank through a scheme involving payments in roubles.
It was not entirely clear how the payments would be made after the amendments to the decree were published on Thursday. Russian authorities have said they have been working on ways to resolve the issue.
The updated decree says payments for Russian gas via the K-type rouble and foreign currency accounts will not be conducted until the sanctions against Gazprombank are lifted and could be resumed by a decision of the Russian president.
Russia shipped about 15 billion cubic metres of gas via Ukraine in 2023 — only 8% of the peak Russian gas flows to Europe through various routes in 2018-2019.
However, some countries such as Turkey and Hungary still buy gas in large volumes from Russia.
Hungary has asked the US to exempt Gazprombank from sanctions when it comes to payments for natural gas, saying those sanctions could negatively affect some US allies.
According to the sanctions, the companies should unwind their transactions with the bank by 20 December.
Ukrainian mayor laid to rest after death in Russian captivity
As Russian troops approached Dniprorudne in their February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the city’s long-term mayor, Yevhen Matvieiev, could have fled to safety.
Instead, he stayed behind to coordinate humanitarian aid and security for its residents as Moscow’s forces occupied the southeastern Ukrainian city. Weeks later he was captured and not seen again. Last week his body was returned to Ukraine.
“Thanks to him, a large number of people were able to be rescued, freed or moved to Ukraine-controlled territory,” said Oleksandr Slobozhan, who worked with 63-year-old Matvieiev.
On Thursday, Matvieiev’s body was laid to rest in Bucha, outside the capital, Kyiv, after it was returned from Russian captivity with signs of having been tortured to death, said Ukrainian officials.
“Today it became known that the mayor of Dniprorudne, Yevhen Matvieiev, died from torture in Russian captivity. He was kidnapped by the enemy almost 3 years ago in the Zaporizhzhia region because he provided for the community that elected him and trusted him,” wrote Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko on Telegram.
Weeping mourners including Matvieiev’s wife quietly caressed his coffin as a light snow sprinkled down from an overcast sky. His official portrait stood propped up nearby.
Matvieiev was captured in March 2022 while freeing local workers who were being held by Russian troops, said Slobozhan, head of the Association of Cities of Ukraine.
Navalny’s widow asks supporters to design ‘people’s gravestone’ for late husband
Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, asked his supporters on Thursday to design “a people’s gravestone” for him as a symbol of his political struggle against the Kremlin.
Navalny, whose death in February at age 47 in a prison above the Arctic Circle deprived the opposition of its most determined and charismatic leader, is buried in a Moscow cemetery where supporters come to pay respects.
In a YouTube video, Navalnaya said she and other family members were holding a competition to design his gravestone and invited supporters to submit ideas before the end of January.
She and the family would choose their three favourites and then allow supporters to vote on which one they liked best before announcing the result on 16 February, the first anniversary of Navalny’s death.
“And let it be not just a monument, but a symbol. For some, a symbol of hope. For some, a symbol of strength and struggle. For some, a symbol of what we’ve been through together. And a symbol of how expensive freedom is.
“This monument is a way of saying that we have not forgotten Alexei and his ideas. And we will never forget.”
Navalnaya, who was appointed chair of the US-based Human Rights Foundation earlier this year, told the BBC broadcaster in October she planned to one day return to Russia and run for president when President Vladimir Putin is no longer in power.
Putin (72) was re-elected in March for another six-year term.
Navalny’s political movement, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, is outlawed as “extremist” in Russia, where authorities portray it as a Western-backed project out to destabilise the country.
Navalnaya herself is accused of involvement in an extremist group and would face arrest if she returned to Russia. DM