Blinken Accused of 'Cowardice' for Fleeing OSCE Confab

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken "fled" from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe meeting in North Macedonia this week, in what he called an act of "simple cowardice."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at an OSCE meeting Thursday that the West is killing chances of reviving the grouping, which he said is on the brink of collapse.

Speaking in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, at a meeting which Ukraine and some of its allies had boycotted, Lavrov said: "There are no particular reasons for optimism at present. The OSCE is essentially being turned into an appendage of NATO and the European Union.

"The organization, let's face it, is on the edge of a precipice. A simple question arises: does it make sense to make efforts to revitalize it?"

Lavrov accused the West of waging "hybrid war" against Russia and said the European Union had become an "aggressive political project."

The 57-member OSCE is the successor to a Cold War-era organization for Soviet and Western powers to engage but is now largely paralyzed by Russia's ongoing use of the effective veto each country possesses.