Switzerland guarantees Lavrov unhindered entry to OSCE: What is known
Photo: Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis (Getty Images)
Switzerland guarantees Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov unhindered entry if he chooses to attend a meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
This was reported by RBC-Ukraine, citing a statement by Swiss Foreign Minister and current OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ignazio Cassis at a press conference.
Cassis said that he had discussed the participation of the Russian delegation in the OSCE meeting with Lavrov. The meeting will be held in Lugano, and the Swiss side would like to see Russia there.
The minister added that he had spoken about this with Lavrov during a visit to Moscow. According to him, the Russians are "ready to come to our discussions and even to the ministerial conference, if we can, of course, guarantee logistics and security."
"I told him (Lavrov) that this is what Switzerland can (do) and we demonstrated that we already were able to welcome Madame Matviyenko, President of the Duma, in July last year without difficulties. And we can guarantee such venue from some such travel for Minister Lavrov to the ministerial conference in Lugano this year," he added.
What is the OSCE
The OSCE is the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, an international body that brings together 57 countries from Europe, North America, and Asia. It deals with security issues, human rights, democratic governance, and conflict prevention.
Russia was also a member of the OSCE prior to its invasion of Ukraine. As of 2026, Russia remains a permanent member of the organization but has suspended its participation in the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA) and frozen its contributions to the organization’s budget.
For their part, other OSCE members are not eager to see the aggressor there. For quite some time now, calls have been voiced both by Ukraine and a number of partners to suspend Russia’s participation in the organization or expel it altogether.
On January 31, Cassis said he planned to visit Kyiv and Moscow. He noted that this aligns with the OSCE’s priorities this year, as under Switzerland’s chairmanship, the organization will work on establishing peace in Europe.
Already on February 2, following his visit to Ukraine, Cassis said that the OSCE had presented "concrete tools" in Kyiv to monitor the maintenance of peace in Ukraine after the end of the war with Russia. However, this would not be something new for the organization: prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) monitored the ceasefire regime in Donbas.
