Ukraine

OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Foreign Minister of Poland, Zbigniew Rau, and OSCE Secretary General, Helga Maria Schmid, have announced that the OSCE has initiated steps to close the office of the Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine. This decision follows the lack of consensus by the OSCE Permanent Council to extend the Project Co-ordinator’s mandate, due to the position of the Russian Federation.

Ukraine made an appeal on Tuesday to suspend Russia from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). “What is the added value of Russia’s participation in OSCE after it has violated all ten fundamental principles of the Helsinki Final Act?” asked Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba at the OSCE Annual Security Review Conference, the OSCE’s flagship event on regional security challenges.

Russia pressed on with its offensive in eastern Ukraine on Thursday (29 June) after NATO branded Moscow the biggest “direct threat” to Western security and agreed plans to modernise Kyiv’s beleaguered armed forces.

[…] After the Russian invasion, external support to Ukraine has changed the emphasis from capacity-building and NATO interoperability to the provision of military equipment and other means of assistance to meet immediate needs. However, if the security situation permits and it is in line with the political priorities of both parties, an EU mission to the Ukrainian PME [Professional Military Education] sector may become relevant again.

The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide briefed the Security Council on Tuesday, reinforcing concerns already voiced by other senior UN officials in the chamber, over “the heightened risks” of sexual violence, and trafficking, which are “significantly impacting women and children”, following the Russian invasion of 24 February.

Russia launched its war on Ukraine on 24 February 2022, but Russian cyber-attacks against Ukraine have persisted ever since Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, intensifying just before the 2022 invasion.

Ukraine is engaged in “complex” negotiations to free its ports from a Russian naval blockade, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on June 20, after the EU's top diplomat accused Russia of committing a "real war crime" by blocking grain exports from the ports.

As the UN marks the International Day of Family Remittances on Thursday, there is concern that economic contraction and job losses in Russia - likely to now rise further as a result of sanctions imposed since the invasion of Ukraine - are already having an impact on remittance-dependent communities in Central Asia, according to experts with the International Organization for Migration.

Russia and Ukraine account for nearly one-third of global wheat supplies., Russia is also a leading exporter of fertilizer while Ukraine is a major supplier of corn and sunflower oil. The impact of the war "could lead to anywhere between 11 to 19 million more hungry people -- that's chronic hunger for 2022/23," said Boubaker Ben Belhassen of the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO).

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, on Friday condemned the death sentence handed down to three foreign fighters in Ukraine by a court in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. “Such trials against prisoners of war amount to a war crime,” said OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani.