MUNICH, February 17. /TASS/. The Ukrainian situation will become the key topic at the Munich Security Conference that is kicking off on Friday. The 59th forum will bring together several hundreds of politicians from around the world, heads of leading international organizations, representatives of business and scientific circles and experts from 96 countries. Russia has not been participating in the conference at the official level for the second consecutive year. Last year many people refused to come due to the situation with the coronavirus and possible vaccines-related difficulties, whereas this year Russian officials have not been invited, for the first time in more than 20 years.
Such a decision taken by organizers was announced earlier by Chairman of the conference Christoph Heusgen, who said that representatives of Russia’s civil society would come to Bavaria’s capital. In this respect Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said that the Munich Security Conference had completely degraded as its organizers did not invite Russians out of fear of hearing the truth.
The decision not to invite officials from Russia has also been criticized in Germany. Gregor Gysi, the German Left Party’s foreign affairs spokesperson in the Bundestag, has slammed it as a lost opportunity to talk about the possible ceasefire in Ukraine.
Organizers have not invited Iran’s leadership this year either, same as the Alternative for Germany party, which critically evaluates the policy of the country’s government, including on Russia.
Roughly 45 heads of states and governments and around 90 ministers are expected to arrive in Munich. The United States will be presented by Vice-President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with congressmen also expected to come. The German delegation headed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz will particularly include Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, as well as other cabinet members.
Among the participants expected are French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), member of the CCP Politburo Wang Yi, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani, Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
The EU will be represented by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell, President of the European Council Charles Michel. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Moldovan President Maia Sandu are expected to come to Munich. Ukraine’s delegation will include Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, as well as around 20 Ukrainian parliamentarians. International organizations will be represented by Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva, Director General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol, and more.
The conference will start on Friday with a video address by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Later in the day Scholz and Macron will speak. A meeting of G7 foreign ministers is also expected to take place on the sidelines of the Munich conference. Moreover, German Chancellor will speak at the conference on Friday and later answer its participants’ questions.
The situation in Ukraine in the context of the military aid being provided to it by the West is going to become the key topic of the forum. Germany’s political scientist Alexander Rahr expects an attempt by the West to demonstrate in Munich its cohesion in the situation around Ukraine. Meanwhile, the organizers’ goal is to show that Germany remains a reliable ally of the US in the issues of European security, he suggests.
NATO’s future, the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, the state of affairs in the Middle East, in the Indo-Pacific region, the Iranian nuclear program will be among other issues on the agenda. In light of the aftermath of powerful earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the questions of relief actions in those countries will be discussed.
Sixteen years ago, in 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the Munich Security Conference with a speech devoted to foreign policy that had an international resonance. The speech focused on the vision of Russia’s place and role in the world considering the reality and threats of the time and the unacceptability of unipolar model in the current policy.
Putin pointed out then that unilateral, sometimes illegitimate actions had not solved a single problem, often generating new volatile areas though, whereas certain norms of some countries, first of all the US, crossed their borders. He noted that the international law should be universal.
The Russian president also stressed the importance of a balance of interests in the security area, adding that the world could only develop on the basis of a multisided model.
A whole number of experts share the view that many of Putin’s warnings come true nowadays. NATO's expansion, the unipolar world, problems in the disarmament area, the OSCE’s degradation, the Iranian nuclear problem, Europe’s energy security are among the issues mentioned by the Russian leader in Munich in 2007, that have become even more pressing by now.
Russia started participating in the Munich Security Conference at the end of the 1990s. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov traditionally headed the country’s delegation. In 2016, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attended in Munich conference.