The Russian Foreign Ministry announced a boycott of the upcoming OSCE event.

The official Russian delegation is boycotting the upcoming meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on the observance and protection of human rights due to the extremely biased behavior of the Finnish presidency and Western participating states. The relevant information follows from the official document of the Department of Multilateral Cooperation on Human Rights of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DMHR), which is available to Izvestia.

They refused to take into account Russian priorities when developing the agenda, as well as determining the modalities of the event, the ministry explained.

On May 5-6, Vienna will host the second OSCE Additional Meeting on the Human Dimension on the topic "Protection of civil society — the role of human rights defenders and freedom of assembly."

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Earlier in the day, Vladislav Maslennikov, Director of the Department of Pan-European Cooperation at the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that Russia was paying attention to the inaction of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on the issue of radicalization of European society. According to him, manifestations of intolerance, xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are growing in the European Union (EU) countries.