The presence of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the meeting ofOsce it will be a diplomatic case. Polish Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek announced that he would not attend the meeting in Skopje, North Macedonia, as he considered the presence of the diplomatic chief of the country that invaded Ukraine “unacceptable.”
Warsaw’s move follows similar stances by Ukraine and the US Baltic countries. Yesterday, the foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania declared their intention not to take part in the interministerial meeting of the Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in order “not to legitimize an aggressor country, Russia, as a full member of our community of free nations .”
The movement of the Baltics as well as that of the Poland, were predictable. This was confirmed by the Italian Foreign Minister himself, Antonio Tajani, who yesterday described as “obvious” the accusations of the countries at the forefront of the challenge between Moscow and the West. However, if the news of these defections is fully part of the tensions between the Baltic capitals and Moscow, it also seems interesting how the Kremlin is using Lavrov’s presence at the summit in Macedonia. In fact, as Corriere della Sera explains, the physical presence of the Russian minister is the result of skillful diplomatic work by the Russian Federation, which made it necessary for Lavrov to travel to Skopje to vote on the future rotating presidency of the OSCE. Macedonia gave the green light, and with it Moscow diplomacy once again returned to the stage of a meeting attended by representatives of the Western world.
Lavrov’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, has placed the burden of ninety on the latent embarrassment felt over the Macedonia game. He said he had “many requests for bilateral meetings” and then accused Western countries of “carrying out all sorts of intrigues against Russia” ahead of the summit. EU High Representative Josep Borrell and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken confirmed their presence, but also confirmed the fact that they will not have direct contacts with the Russian representative. However, there is no denying that this is such an important man in the Russian apparatus and an undisputed protagonist of Russian foreign policy Wladimir Putin, is an element that inevitably creates a certain tension in a system, the Western one, that denies the Kremlin less and less room for maneuver. Also on the international stage.