This article is from the source 'rtcom' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.rt.com/russia/593532-russia-albania-black-sea/

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Moscow urges Black Sea nations’ group to get back on track Ukraine is ‘matter of life and death’ for Russia – diplomat
(32 minutes later)
Turning meetings into political talk shows will hurt the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, Russia believes For the US, the conflict is a “lucrative business project,” Dmitry Birichevsky has said
A senior Russian diplomat has chastised Albania, which holds the rotating presidency in the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), for allowing one of the group’s events to be dominated by the Ukraine conflict. A senior Russian diplomat pushed back on an attempt by Albania, a US ally, to use a regional forum for political grandstanding in support of Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has revealed.
The rebuke came last week from Dmitry Birichevsky and the Russian Foreign Ministry released the transcript of his speech on Wednesday. The director of the ministry’s Department of Economic Cooperation, Birichevsky was heading Moscow’s delegation at an informal meeting of the BSEC’s Committee of Senior Officials (CSO). The organization has 13 member states, including Russia and Ukraine, and was created in 1992 to advance commerce in the Black Sea region. Albania currently presides over the Organization Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), and chose to call an extraordinary informal meeting of the group’s senior officials on February 23, a Russian national holiday. 
The meeting was convened by Albania on the eve of the second anniversary of the Russian deployment of troops against Ukrainian forces. Parts of the Black Sea have seen military action, while civilian traffic in other areas has been affected. On several occasions Ukrainian sea mines, deployed to prevent a Russian amphibious operation, lost their anchors and floated away. Türkiye, Romania and Bulgaria have signed an agreement to jointly combat the threat. That drew a sharp response from Dmitry Birichevsky, the head of the Russian delegation, which the Foreign Ministry chose to make public on Wednesday evening.
Birichevsky warned that the Albanian presidency, which it assumed at the start of the year, may end up a “great failure” and tarnish the organization’s reputation. The meeting was called in violation of protocol, while its agenda deviated from the organization’s mandate, he said. “If there is a general mood in the room not to focus on BSEC, let’s consider it as a talk show, as a self-made Security Council which we invented for ourselves, not for practical projects, not for helping people,” Birichevsky said, addressing Ukraine’s “provocative performance.”
Moscow has accused Ukraine and its Western backers of manipulating various international forums for opportunities to attack Russia. Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, have dubbed the tactics a “Ukrainization of agenda” and argue that it harms the efficiency of affected organizations. For Russia, the issue of Ukraine is not about territory or geopolitics, but “a matter of life and death,” said the diplomat. “It is about being able to live as [we did] for ages – as one family, with the same core values that are not for foreign intruders to destroy.”
Birichevsky went on to say that since the senior officials’ meeting was going in the wrong direction, he would “consider it a talk show” and delivered a lengthy rebuke of the “Kiev regime” and Washington, going back as far as the 2014 armed coup in the Ukrainian capital. Birichevsky reminded his colleagues that Ukraine “lost its sovereignty” in 2014, “as a result of the US-EU sponsored and directed coup d’état.” He noted that President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted even after signing an agreement to settle the dispute with the nationalist protesters peacefully – mediated by France, Germany and Poland, none of whom cared when it was violated.
The ongoing conflict is a “manifestation of neocolonialism” by the US, he claimed. “If we want to remember everything today, then let’s remember everything,” Birichevsky said, bringing up the role of US diplomat Victoria Nuland in the coup.
“Ukraine is not a unique example of such a policy,” Birichevsky stressed. “Let’s commemorate the innocent victims in Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. Other regions of the world … clearly feel the negative impact and opt for more democratic and efficient global governance.” He also called the government of Ukraine a “nationalist neo-Nazi regime… that has been conducting a full-fledged war against its own population” for the past decade. Just since February 2022, Birichevsky noted, the Ukrainian military has launched 32,388 attacks on the Donetsk People’s Republic alone, killing 4,787 civilians – including 142 children – and wounding another 5,776  people.
The majority of the world’s nations would not join the Western retaliatory campaign against Russia, refusing to impose any restrictions on it, the Russian diplomat said. Meanwhile, the EU has wrecked its own economy, losing approximately $1.5 trillion due to the so-called sanctions against Russia, which the “global majority” of 150 countries never joined or recognized, Birichevsky argued.
“The proxy war till the last Ukrainian,” the Russian diplomat added, “is a lucrative business project for Washington, nothing more.”
Russia has always been open and ready to resolve the conflict through negotiations, Birichevsky noted, but Ukraine “suspended talks in 2022 after a direct instruction from London and Washington” and has repeatedly demonstrated “genuine unwillingness” to end the ongoing tragedy.
Birichevsky is the director of the Department of Economic Cooperation at the Russian Foreign Ministry. The BSEC is made up of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine and Türkiye.