According to Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, this special mission “deliberately drags itself into the Washington-driven militaristic psychosis and is used as a tool for possible provocation.”

The Russian representative urged the OSCE leadership to stop any attempts at manipulating its mission and, in her opinion, to prevent it from getting involved in the dirty political games that are being prepared around her.

“We start from the premise that, in conditions of artificial tension, the mission’s surveillance activities, in full compliance with its mandate, are more in demand than ever,” she stressed.

The Western proposal comes amid tensions between Russia and the West over the internal situation in Ukraine and accusations of Moscow’s alleged invasion of that country, which has been repeatedly denied by the Kremlin.

On Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the telephone that Washington’s propaganda campaign on Russia’s alleged aggression against Ukraine pursues provocative goals.

Lavrov assured that such a discourse encourages Ukrainian authorities to sabotage the Minsk Protocol for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Donbass and harmful attempts at solving the problem by force.

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