“Malta continues the predecessors’ course of one-sided and biased assessments of the situation in Ukraine. The OSCE Secretary General has blatantly taken the side of the criminal regime in Kiev, without a word of condemnation of the barbaric missile attacks in Belgorod, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians, including children,” Moscow’s permanent mission in the OSCE said in a statement on Tuesday.

Moreover, it added that Malta and the OSCE Secretariat are “continuing their course towards the forced collapse of the organisation’s platform, flouting their mandates.”

Earlier, Borg and OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid criticised Russian air attacks on Ukraine.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of significant air strikes against the other that intensified since last week.

Russia carried out air strikes across Ukraine on 29th December which killed at least 45 people in what was described as Russia’s biggest attack on Ukraine since its invasion. It was preceded by the Ukrainian strikes on the Russian border city of Belgorod the following day, which killed at least 24 people.

Ukraine was then the subject of attack by Russian air strikes two days later which Russia said was a direct response to the strikes on Belgorod.

Russia stated that it used high-precision missiles to hit military targets while Ukraine said that not a single military facility was hit, rather civilian infrastructure was damaged, a defence ministry spokesperson said.

Image on the left: still taken from Reuters video of Ukraine following Russian airstrike

Image on the right:  from a video released by Russia Emergency Situations Ministry telegram channel shows damage from strikes in Belgorod. Source: Bloomberg

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