Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Number of Foreign Diplomats Leave OSCE Meeting Before Russian Speaks

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, as well as a number of foreign ministers and diplomats, left the OSCE plenary hall when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was speaking there. This was reported by the press service of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on social media.

On Thursday, 5 December, Sybiha left the OSCE plenary hall in Malta before his Russian ‘colleague’ Lavrov began his speech.

Before that, at the end of his speech, he called Lavrov a war criminal, according to the agency.

The Ukrainian foreign minister was followed by a number of other foreign ministers and diplomats. Representatives of a number of other delegations also made a demarche and left the hall.

In particular, the foreign ministers of Poland and the Czech Republic, Radoslaw Sikorski and Jan Lipawski, who had previously announced that they would not listen to Lavrov's speech at the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting, followed Sybiha.

It is known that Lavrov, despite being under EU sanctions, is taking part in the OSCE ministerial meeting in Malta. This is his first trip to an EU country since Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine.

Lavrov will attend a lunch on the first day of the OSCE meeting, but will not attend the dinner, which will focus on Russia's aggression against Ukraine.