Russia brings aggression, war, poverty and death, president tells OSCE

If we accept Russia's inhumanity as something normal, we will enable victory for the "Russkij Mir" (Russian order), an idea which means brutality, aggression, war, poverty and death, Poland's president told a sitting of the OSCE Ministerial Council on Thursday.

Andrzej Duda said Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine was the first such open act of warfare in Europe since World War Two.

"For the first time since World War Two, we are confronted by such an open armed attack on the principles we all agreed on to prevent another war in Europe," he said.

Duda added that Russia today was "a criminal state whose policies cannot be condoned and whose words cannot be believed."

Commenting on Russia's progressing destruction of Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, the president said the international community "shouldn't accept the deliberate annihilation of the civilian population."

"This should not be viewed as normal, this cannot be ignored," Duda said, noting that Russia's policy based on "anti-values against which we agreed to pool our forces to build a Europe... where individual freedom and human life are respected."