Austria’s About to Give Russia a Soapbox at the OSCE

Vienna will allow sanctioned Russian parliamentarians to attend the next big security meeting on the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The logo of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
The logo of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
The logo of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is pictured prior to an extraordinary meeting of its Permanent Council on the situation in Ukraine in Vienna on Feb. 21, 2022. Alex Halada/AFP/Getty Images

Russia’s War in Ukraine

After almost a year of total Russian diplomatic isolation in the West, the Austrian government is poised to issue a limited number of visas to Russian parliamentarians to allow them to attend a key meeting at an international security forum later this month, a spokesperson for the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Antonia Praun, confirmed to Foreign Policy.

After almost a year of total Russian diplomatic isolation in the West, the Austrian government is poised to issue a limited number of visas to Russian parliamentarians to allow them to attend a key meeting at an international security forum later this month, a spokesperson for the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Antonia Praun, confirmed to Foreign Policy.

Austrian officials have insisted that, as host to the headquarters of the Organization for Security and Corporation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, they are legally obligated to issue visas to the Russian delegation. But the decision has already sparked immediate blowback from some OSCE members, with Lithuanian delegates vowing to boycott the meeting and seeking to rally other countries to do the same. Russian parliamentarians were barred from attending OSCE gatherings in Poland and the United Kingdom last year.

Laurynas Kasciunas, a member of the Lithuanian delegation, said they have made up their mind “99 percent” not to attend the meeting and would raise the issue with their neighbors in Northern Europe at a meeting of the Nordic-Baltic Eight grouping later this week. Radoslaw Fogiel, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Polish Parliament, who is a member of the country’s delegation to the OSCE, said “all options are on the table” as to whether the country would boycott the upcoming meeting. “It’s the matter of political will, it’s the matter of integrity, it’s the matter of morality,” he said of Austria’s decision.

The Ukrainian parliamentary delegation will travel to Vienna to hold meetings on the sidelines of the gathering with their counterparts from North America and Europe, but it will not attend any of the assembly meetings in light of Russia’s attendance, said Yevheniia Kravchuk, an alternate member of the Ukrainian delegation.

The diplomatic row reflects a broader debate in Western capitals on how—or even whether—to keep channels of communication open with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine almost one year ago. Some European countries have booted Russian ambassadors out of their country, whereas others have called on powers beyond Europe to join a full diplomatic boycott of Moscow in a far-reaching campaign to turn Russian President Vladimir Putin into an international pariah.

Like the organization’s other 56 member states, Russia has a permanent mission to the OSCE in Vienna. The country’s parliamentary delegation, which consists of sitting members of the Russian parliament, is subject to sanctions by the European Union for supporting the war and Russia’s recognition of the independence of two Ukrainian regions in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Those opposed to Russia’s participation in the summit fear that it would give Moscow a platform to advance its own distorted narrative about the conflict. This OSCE winter meeting is to be held in the Austrian capital on Feb. 23 and Feb. 24—the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Zygimantas Pavilionis—chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Lithuanian parliament, who is not part of the country’s delegation to the OSCE—cautioned in an interview that inviting the Russian members of parliament would “serve Russian propaganda” and “allow them to create an image that the West is returning to business as usual.”

On Monday, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a resolution calling on the OSCE to expel Russia entirely from the body and to deny visas to Russian delegates. “To me, the OSCE is dead. It didn’t protect us,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ukrainian parliament.

A media advisory provided to Foreign Policy by the Austrian Embassy to the United States stated that Austria, as host to the headquarters of the OSCE, is legally obligated to issue visas to delegations from participating countries to attend meetings and therefore does not have the discretionary power used by other states to deny visas to Russian parliamentarians. “The procedure is no different to the one followed by other seat countries of international organizations, e.g. Swiss authorities granting access to United Nations grounds to UN Member State representatives,” the note added.

Many Western countries have pushed to completely alienate Russia on the world stage over its invasion of Ukraine last year, a conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people and sparked the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II as over 8 million people have fled the country. Parliamentarians from 20 countries sent a letter to the Austrian government, urging them to bar the Russian delegation from attending the meeting, the Agence France-Presse reported last week.

Russia has pushed back on past efforts to disinvite top officials by OSCE members. After the Polish foreign ministry notified Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that he wasn’t welcome at a meeting late last year in Lodz, Maria Zakharova, the ministry’s top spokesperson, accused the body of trying to strong-arm European security. Poland insisted Lavrov could not attend because he is under U.S. and European sanctions.

Austria’s top diplomat criticized the decision by Poland. “Representatives of all states should be granted access to high-level meetings like the one today. Let us not destroy this unique platform that used to be our collective answer to the tensions of the Cold War and the deep divisions between East and West,” Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said in December 2022.

Poland declined to issue visas to attend the OSCE meeting in Lodz in December 2022 while the United Kingdom barred Russia from attending the organizations annual meeting in June of that year, citing sanctions imposed by London in the wake of the invasion.

But even as Russia’s standing in the OSCE has been questioned, Russian delegates have been successful in trying to foil some of the organization’s top initiatives. The OSCE’s annual ministerial meeting in Poland in December last year failed to adopt any decisions, including a $143 million budget proposal, which Armenian and Azerbaijani representatives agreed to block alongside Russia, depriving more than a dozen peacekeeping missions in Europe and Central Asia of funding.

And more hawkish European countries see Vienna as part of the problem. Despite recently expelling Russian diplomats from the country, Austria—long a militarily neutral country—has enjoyed closer relations with the Kremlin than most of Europe since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February. In April 2022, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer became the first European leader to visit Putin in Russia since the attack, calling for an end to the war.

Outside of the United Nations, the OSCE is one of the last international institutions that both Western countries and Russia belong to. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it played an outsized role in monitoring the contact lines in eastern Ukraine following Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

And unlike the American congressional delegation, which will include a mix of defenders of the Biden administration’s approach to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Republican critics of the White House, former officials expect the Russian Duma delegation to serve as a Kremlin mouthpiece.

“I think there will be little value in having Russian Duma members present. They arent legitimately elected in their own country, and we can predict exactly what they will say,” said Dan Baer, a former U.S. ambassador to the OSCE during the Obama administration who is now the vice president for policy research at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.

“Unlike the U.S. delegation, which includes Republicans and Democrats, some members of which will probably be at a different position than the U.S. government, theres no need for the Russian Duma members to come because theres already a Russian delegation thats bound to the official line in Vienna.”

Correction, Feb. 7, 2023: A previous version misstated Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg’s title.

Amy Mackinnon is a national security and intelligence reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @ak_mack

Jack Detsch is a Pentagon and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @JackDetsch

Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @RobbieGramer

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