Switzerland will chair the OSCE in 2026, and Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said Bern wanted to focus on confidence-building measures and preparations for a possible ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv.
“There are already concrete considerations on this matter: the organization is capable of quickly deploying several dozen people. The OSCE could monitor ceasefires, the ceasefire line, monitor elections and so on,” Cassis told the SonntagsBlick newspaper.
“However, the front line currently stretches for 1.3 thousand kilometers – the OSCE alone is too small to monitor its entire length. This would require significant commitments from the participating states,” he said.
I. Cassis said that US President Donald Trump could quickly reach an agreement on a ceasefire.
“Something like this can happen very suddenly – as in the case of the Gaza agreement. My goal is that we as the OSCE are ready. As soon as an agreement is reached, we want to be able to press the button and start working,” the minister asserted.
He said that first of all, a fact-finding mission should go to Ukraine, which would provide a diagnosis of the situation upon its return, and the OSCE could quickly start follow-up.
Founded in 1975 to ease tensions between East and West during the Cold War, the OSCE brings together 57 members from Europe, Central Asia and North America, including the United States, Ukraine and Russia.
I. Cassis said that Russia, which launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, violated the main principles of the OSCE.
However, Moscow has not withdrawn or been expelled from the organization, indicating that the OSCE “remains important for dialogue with Russia – even if that dialogue is weakened.”
Cassis said he would draw the attention of major powers to what the OSCE could do in the field of cooperation and the channels it could use.
“The OSCE must be ready to act whenever the opportunity arises, even if the options are limited at the moment,” he said.
Three days of talks between Ukrainian and US officials failed to produce any apparent breakthrough on Saturday, with President Volodymyr Zelensky pledging to continue talks on “real peace” even as Russia launched another series of drone and missile strikes on its neighbor.
