Russia regularly does its best to oppose Warsaw’s anti-Kremlin initiatives within the framework of Poland’s OSCE chairmanship and tries to win the support of its allies inside the organization.
September, 26 – October, 7, the Polish 2022 OSCE Chairmanship-in-Office and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights plan to hold Warsaw Human Dimension Conference.
In fact this event is conduct instead of the annual OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting that was blocked by Russia as the Polish Chairmanship’s had denied to take into account Moscow’s requirements regarding the meeting priorities and modalities, the venue, in particular.
Moscow initiates moving the OSCE humanitarian dimension events as well as the ODIHR headquarters outside Poland and generally beyond the borders of NATO member states. In turn, the Russian side suggests Vienna, the OSCE headquarters seat, as an alternative venue. The Russian representatives try to explain this choice by the appropriate level of safety of the participants and low logistical and other costs.
The proposal of Vienna as the alternative meeting location echoed the information about the Russian intelligence infiltration into the OSCE PA leadership and intentions to promote Russian candidacy for the organization leadership positions.
The Kremlin intends to boycott the conference at the official delegation level but, in parallel, it tries to guarantee representatives of controlled territories, in particular, the annexed Crimea, as the even participants.
On August 31, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin, who oversees the Department for Humanitarian Cooperation and Human Rights, drew attention of the ‘Permanent Representation of the Republic of Crimea to the President of Russia’ to the necessity to attend the relevant conference meetings to ‘bring information about the current situation in Russia to the West’.
Recently, the OSCE has continued avoiding any actions that might damage Russia’s political interests. In particular, we mean the position of the Secretary General of the OSCE H.Schmid. For example, she refused to attend ‘Crimean Platform’ online meeting explaining that she had to be present at the insignificant diplomatic meeting in Switzerland. In addition, Schmid’s attempt to appoint his creature, Gelfiya Shchienko, to the post of head of the OSCE SMM, raises concerns.
Shchienko was born in 1977, has a citizenship of Tajikistan, got married with Mykola Shchienko, a citizen of Russia. There are grounds to assume that she has got Russian citizenship as well, but this very fact is out of the public eye. It is indirectly proved by her Tatar ethnicity.
At present time she maintains friendly and unofficial relations with the Permanent Mission of Russia to the OSCE. On the sidelines of the OSCE Secretariat, G.Shchienko is known as a person who can easily resolve any issue with the Russians. The fact that H.Schmid brought her in the confidential negotiations with Russia regarding the release of OSCE SMM personnel detained in Russian-controlled territories of Ukraine confirms close ‘friendship’ with Russians. According to OSINT data from the analysis of Russian information bases it is suggested that one of Shchienko’s sons serves in the Russian security forces in Moscow. Russia’s increasing influence on the OSCE is source of major concern. Based on unconfirmed information from diplomatic corps related to the OSCE Secretariat, H.Sсhmid’s plan to appoint G.Shchienko was probably agreed with the Russian side and was intended to avoid blocking initiatives to introduce an alternative OSCE mission after the OSCE SMM mandate finishes in October.
