Russia talks peace while waging war, UK tells OSCE
Per the FCDO's July 1 statement to the OSCE, UK Senior Military Advisor Colonel Joby Rimmer condemned what he called the contradiction between Russia's rhetoric of dialogue and its continued aggression, and called for an.
At a glance
- Colonel Joby Rimmer told the OSCE that Russia's peace rhetoric contradicts its continued aggression (FCDO, July 1).
- The UK called for an immediate ceasefire and meaningful negotiations.
VERDICT — CONFIRMED
Russia talks peace while waging war, the United Kingdom told the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe on 1 July, in a statement delivered in Vienna by Colonel Joby Rimmer, the UK's Senior Military Advisor, and published by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Per the FCDO text, Colonel Rimmer set out what he called a fundamental contradiction in Moscow's position: Russia "speaks of dialogue but rejects the conditions that would make talks meaningful" and "speaks of peace but refuses a ceasefire." The statement noted that Russia has not taken up President Zelenskyy's repeated offers of direct dialogue.
The statement catalogued recent conduct: formal notes issued by Russia to embassies in Kyiv on 6 May; advice from the Russian Ministry of Defence, following a major attack on 25 May, that diplomats leave "as soon as possible," with threats reiterated on 24 June. It further cited Russian casualties of some 38,000 a month for negligible gains, and the use of Oreshnik nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missiles against Ukrainian cities.
The UK's demand, on the record, is that Russia agree an immediate ceasefire and open meaningful negotiations with Kyiv. The statement stands as the British position as delivered to the OSCE; Moscow's response is not recorded in the source material.
Background
The OSCE, headquartered in Vienna, groups 57 states from North America, Europe and Central Asia — including both Russia and Ukraine — and is one of the few remaining multilateral forums where Western and Russian delegations still face each other across a table each week. Its Permanent Council and Forum for Security Co-operation have become a running ledger of the war, with delegations entering formal statements into the record; the organization itself, which operated a monitoring mission in Ukraine until the 2022 full-scale invasion, has been largely paralysed as a decision-making body because it works by consensus.
The Oreshnik missile cited in the British statement is the intermediate-range weapon Russia first used against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November 2024, presented by President Putin as a demonstration of nuclear-capable reach. The casualty arithmetic Colonel Rimmer invoked — tens of thousands of Russian losses a month for marginal territorial gain — has been a consistent theme of Western military assessments of the war's attritional phase.
What comes next
The statement commits the UK to pressing for an immediate ceasefire and meaningful negotiations; the OSCE record will show whether Russia's delegation replies in the same forum, and no such response is recorded in the source material. Statements of this kind set positions rather than procedure, so the substantive next step remains whatever ceasefire diplomacy the parties and their partners can assemble outside Vienna.
Key facts on file
- Colonel Joby Rimmer told the OSCE that Russia's peace rhetoric contradicts its continued aggression (FCDO, July 1).
- The UK called for an immediate ceasefire and meaningful negotiations.
