What can the Swiss foreign minister – and the OSCE – achieve in Moscow?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis at the UN in New York in 2024. Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service /

After visiting Kyiv earlier this week, Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis is currently in Moscow, where he is set to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Friday. SRF correspondents analyse what his trip might achieve.

Switzerland has held the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) since January, and it is in this role that Cassis has embarked on this week’s trip.

His visit is a rarity – members of Western governments have not often been seen in Moscow since the start of the war in Ukraine.

But how suitable is the OSCE for mediating in the war? And how is the diplomatic charm offensive being received in the Kremlin? SRF diplomatic correspondent Fredy Gsteiger and SRF Russia correspondent Calum MacKenzie give some answers.

How is Cassis’ diplomatic offensive being received in Moscow?

Moscow is sticking to its claim that the OSCE is an “instrument of the West” – although Russia is a member, it always characterises OSCE criticism of Moscow as “unfair” or “anti-Russian”.

And because Switzerland has adopted European Union (EU) sanctions, the Kremlin has long claimed that Switzerland has “given up its neutrality” and “submitted to Nato”. Russia is therefore likely to take a hard line.

Is the OSCE the right organisation to mediate in this war?

Partly. Minimal trust is a prerequisite for talking about peace at all. And confidence-building is a core OSCE task. However, it is extremely difficult for the organisation to find its role in the current Ukraine conflict, or to play a role at all.

Nobody has high hopes for the OSCE at the moment. There is very little to suggest that the organisation can play a role as a peace mediator, whether under Swiss chairmanship or not.

Why is the OSCE currently failing?

All 57 member states of the organisation meet every week in Vienna, including the US and Russia. But real dialogue rarely happens anymore. Each side expresses its position without listening to the other. Russia is also obstructing all decisions.

Western states in turn avoid dialogue with Russia. The situation in the OSCE is largely blocked, and the organisation has no means of exerting pressure to force anyone to make peace. Actors such as the US or China would have such means.

What is the overall state of the OSCE?

The organisation is in a miserable state, and its reputation has been battered. It is financially weakened and paralysed when it comes to various important issues. It has also largely disappeared from public debates.

The idea of the OSCE is to maintain and enforce a European peace order. It also aimed to pave the way for liberal, Western-style democracy to take hold in the OSCE membership area. This idea is no longer widely accepted.

How unusual is the visit of a Western government minister to Moscow?

This has hardly happened since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Occasional telephone exchanges still happen between Western heads of state and government and Vladimir Putin. Individual dissenters also visit Russia, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán or Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Yet Switzerland and Foreign Minister Cassis have set themselves the goal of talking to everyone, or at least trying to get dialogue started again. That requires at least an effort to seek contact with both Kyiv and Moscow.

Why is the visit politically sensitive for Cassis?

The foreign minister cannot mediate between Ukraine and Russia as a neutral actor: Russia has broken international law and is opposed to all the basic principles of the OSCE.

Cassis must therefore clearly state who is in the right and who is in the wrong. But that does not rule out at least getting dialogue started again – a goal which Switzerland has also set itself.

At the beginning of the week, Cassis met the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. Ukrainian Presidential Press Office

What topics will be at the centre of Cassis’ visit to Moscow?

The war in Ukraine will be the main issue. But Cassis’ hands here are tied. Russian demands are unacceptable for the OSCE: recently, Lavrov called for the organisation to adopt the Russian line on the war – in other words, to stop criticising Moscow and instead denounce the “Nazi regime in Kyiv”.

Dialogue is a good thing in principle, but it seems Russia does not want to talk until it has achieved its aim in the war – Ukraine’s submission. Switzerland and the OSCE are unlikely to want to discuss matters on this basis. It will be very difficult to make progress.

Translated from German by AI/dos

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