Latvia Accuses Russia Of Covid 'pretext' To Cancel Arms Check

Faizan Hashmi Published January 26, 2022 | 12:40 AM

Riga, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jan, 2022 ) :Latvia's defence ministry on Tuesday accused Moscow of using the "pretext" of Covid to cancel a scheduled arms inspection in two regions in western Russia this week.

The ministry said Latvian officers had been due to visit the Bryansk and Smolensk regions as part of routine inspections between members of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

"Russia canceled a pre-planned EDSO arms control inspection by Latvian representatives under the pretext of challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic," the ministry said on Twitter.

EDSO is the Latvian abbreviation for OSCE.

The ministry pointed out that the pandemic "seems to have no effect on Russia's troop build up near borders of Ukraine".

According to Western officials, the Kremlin has already deployed more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine's borders, with reinforcements arriving from all over Russia.

The United States and its EU allies accuse Russia of seeking to upend European stability by threatening an invasion of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic striving to join NATO and other Western institutions.

Russia's defence ministry made no official comment on the inspection but a ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that "all of Europe has cancelled inspections" due to Covid.

An OSCE spokesperson said that "most participating states postponed verification activities at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic".

But the spokesperson added that "since 2021 more than half of the States have resumed verification activities with various safety measures in place".

The spokesperson said OSCE states used a special system to communicate with each other on inspections and therefore the OSCE was "not in a position to comment on verification activities".

The inspections are carried out between OSCE members under a 2011 agreement called the "Vienna Document on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures".

The agreement is intended to promote transparency, including through the notification of military exercises and the exchange of military information.