VIENNA, February 24. /TASS/. Western nations have ignored Russia’s invitation to attend a roundtable about the reasons behind Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Dmitry Polyansky said.

"Today, representatives of Western countries did not show up for our roundtable, where inconvenient facts about the root causes of the conflict were discussed. They live in a paradigm where any Russian position is ‘propaganda,’" he told an extended session of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna. "They are trying to disrupt the peace efforts of Russia and the USA in order to give their Kiev vassals a respite for rearmament."

"In essence, the entire Ukrainian conflict is about truth, which you [Western countries] are deliberately trying not to hear, although you have more than enough opportunities to do so," he added.

In his words, a long-lasting and sustainable peace in Ukraine will be "the worst-case scenario" for Western powers, which they are trying to prevent "at all costs."