Poland in the OSCE

At the OSCE Permanent Council, prof Veronika Bílková (CZ), dr. Cecilie Hellestveit (NO) and dr. Elīna Šteinerte (LV) presented a report resulting from an expert mission under the Moscow Mechanism to establish the facts and circumstances surrounding the unlawful detention of Ukrainian civilians by Russia.

The experts state in the report that starting from spring 2014 Russia began unlawfully depriving a significant number of Ukrainian civilians of their liberty and intensified these actions with the start of the full-scale invasion against Ukraine in February 2022. The report confirms that Russia's unlawful detention and holding of Ukrainian civilians contravenes the provisions of international humanitarian law (IHL), international human rights law (IHRL), as well as OSCE commitments. At the same time, the evidence gathered, including the testimonies of victims and witnesses, gives grounds to claim that some of the cases should be qualified as war crimes and/or crimes against humanity.

The OSCE Moscow Mechanism 2024 report contains a number of recommendations and calls on Russia to, inter alia, immediately cease the unlawful detention of Ukrainian civilians and release them immediately, as well as to allow representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to detained Ukrainian civilians.

The OSCE Moscow Mechanism was launched on 29 February 2024 by 45 OSCE participating States*, including Poland, to establish the facts of possible violations regarding Russia's arbitrary detention of civilians in Ukraine.

* Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America