Representatives of Lithuania will boycott the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna after Austria allowed Russian representatives to attend.
Euractiv writes about it.
The winter session of the OSCE PA in Vienna will take place on February 23-24, exactly one year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Eighteen Russian deputies are expected to take part in the meeting.
"The final decision is not to go," the head of the Lithuanian parliamentary delegation, Viliia Aleknaite-Abramikene, said on Tuesday.
"We made a decision, and we are united, both the majority and the opposition (in the Lithuanian parliament), and there are no different views," said the head of the Lithuanian delegation.
In a joint statement released after a meeting in Vilnius earlier this month, the parliamentary delegations of the Nordic, Baltic and Polish countries said that Russia should be held accountable for its actions in Ukraine and that an international legal mechanism should be established to assess the crimes the aggressor.
They noted that Russia's participation in the OSCE PA meeting in Vienna will be used for propaganda inside the country and abroad and "will be a very disappointing signal for the international community."
Lithuanian MPs have proposed to their northern, Baltic and Polish counterparts to join the boycott if Russia is allowed to participate, but to no avail.
Aleknaite-Abramikene said that the representatives of other countries decided to "fight with the Russians in the same hall."
All members of the Russian delegation have been on the EU sanctions list since the beginning of 2014.
As a reminder, the delegation of the Verkhovna Rada will not take part in the winter session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, which will be held on February 23-24 in Vienna, as a sign of protest against the admission of representatives of Russia.