MOSCOW. Feb 15 (Interfax) - Hopefully, the withdrawal of certain members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (OSCE SMM) stems from the pandemic and vacations and would not serve as a trigger for aggression, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"I am hoping that the sole reason why certain OSCE members have withdrawn their monitors from the mission is such factors as the novel coronavirus and vacations. Because, being aware that those countries are leading the terrorist information campaign, it involuntarily comes to mind that they may have some hidden motivations," Lavrov said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Lavrov said he would not like the OSCE experience of 1999 to repeat itself: back then head of the OSCE mission in Kosovo, U.S. citizen William Walker "hyped an absolutely false story of the alleged Racak massacre and it was proven later on that the civilians were actually militants and died in combat."
"Back then, Mr. Walker said in public that he was withdrawing the OSCE mission from Kosovo, and his unilateral statement served as a trigger for the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia," Lavrov said.