VIENNA, January 22. /TASS/. Russia is outraged by the lack of reaction from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to Ukraine’s strike on Donetsk, the Russian mission to this organization said.
"We are outraged by the lack of any reaction from the OSCE leadership, including the Maltese chairperson-in-office and Secretary General Helga Schmid, following the barbaric strike by [Ukrainian President] Vladimir Zelensky’s units on Donetsk on the morning of January 21, 2024," it said.
The OSCE leadership keeps silent about Ukraine’s attacks on the civilian population of Russian cities, "pretending that these casualties do not exist," it stressed.
"It means that they are de facto siding with Vladimir Zelensky and his NATO sponsors’ criminal activities and discrediting the OSCE in general. The OSCE cannot and must not be an appendage or a ‘backyard’ of NATO and the European Union, which have their Russophobic agenda, seeking to instigate conflicts in various parts of the world," the mission said.
There should be no place for "OSCE bureaucrats who have forgotten the principles of impartiality and competence and who are openly complicit in crimes against Russia’s civilian population" within this structure, the mission stressed. "They should be replaced by those who will find courage enough to see the obvious and stop serving the propagandistic policy of NATO capitals. Russia’s mission to the OSCE will be guided by this understanding in its work," it said.
A market in Donetsk came under artillery shelling by Ukrainian troops on Sunday. According to head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Denis Pushilin, Ukrainian troops used 152mm and 155mm artillery systems. As a result, twenty-eight people were killed and many more, including children, were wounded. Shortly after the attack, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said that Ukraine’s strike on Donetsk would be discussed at a Russia-requested meeting of the UN Security Council.