Helsinki Commission Chairman Joe Wilson led the U.S. delegation to the 23rd Winter Meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA) from February 22-23 in Vienna, Austria. The bipartisan delegation featured participation from Commissioners Rep. Marc Veasey and Rep. Victoria Spartz, as well as Rep. Lloyd Doggett and Rep. Andy Harris.

The United States led a chorus of like-minded delegations in denouncing Vladimir Putin’s violent despotism at home in Russia and abroad throughout the Winter Meeting’s many parliamentary debates. These discussions were especially poignant given the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a Siberian penal colony just days before the start of the meeting. In addition—and for the second year in a row—the inter-parliamentary conference took place in the lead-up to the February 24th anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Unlike in 2023, the Russian delegation chose not to participate in this year’s Winter Meeting and continues to withhold payment of its annual dues to the OSCE PA.

At the opening meeting of the General Committee on Political and Security Affairs, Chairman Wilson noted that “two years ago, on February 24th, war criminal Putin, with Dictator Lukashenko of Belarus, launched a murderous invasion of the people of Ukraine.” “This week,” he continued, “Putin on February 16th, assassinated Alexei Navalny, revealing that the people of Russia are under oppression, and now Putin’s murders continue for personal power to oppress the people of Russia and Ukraine.”

Rep. Veasey took the floor during the same committee session to underscore that “the only way to preserve democracy in the face of aggressive authoritarians is to arm ourselves and be strong enough to ensure that dictators do not even consider military action. This begins with Ukrainian victory.” He further urged parliamentarians from across the OSCE region to “send Ukraine everything it needs to win, to fully restore its internationally recognized borders, and fulfill our promise to see this inspiring country integrated into Euro-Atlantic security institutions.”

Later in the session, Rep. Spartz urged politicians to shoulder the burden required to hold the line against autocracies. “We have to prevail for all people that sacrifice their lives for our freedoms,” she said. “But each of you as a leader of a country should really think as you look back, what have you done, where have you been when [the] free world was falling.”

In the General Committee on Economic Affairs, Science, Technology, and Environment, Rep. Doggett drew attention to Russia’s various means of evading multilateral sanctions, noting that “by shipping its oil to be laundered and refined into gasoline or jet fuel in third-party countries like the United Arab Emirates and Italy, Russia can circumvent sanctions.”

Rep. Harris addressed the same committee to highlight “Russia’s use of corruption as a tool of foreign policy,” which he said “helped Russia launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.” “In order to win the war against Russia and prevent Russian aggression in the future, we must make our systems less susceptible to foreign corruption,” he concluded.

The U.S. delegation used its interventions in the General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights, and Humanitarian Questions to pay tribute to Alexei Navalny and insist on accountability for Vladimir Putin. Chairman Wilson led the committee in a moment of silence for Navalny and highlighted the field hearing titled “Holding Russia Accountable for its War Crimes against Ukraine” that he chaired earlier in the week at Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg, Germany, where war crimes trials of Nazis were held in the wake of World War II. Rep. Veasey also commemorated Navalny’s life and stressed that “no relationship with Russia is worth preserving over the lives of millions. We need to do what is right. We need to help Ukraine, and we need to stand up against Putin.”

On the sidelines of the Winter Meeting, the U.S. delegation held several bilateral meetings, including with the Israeli and Romanian delegations. Chairman Wilson also moderated a panel discussion titled “Enforcing the Sanctions Against Russia,” co-hosted by the U.S., Ukrainian, and Norwegian delegations, as well as the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. Rep. Veasey, in his capacity as a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Countering Terrorism (CCT), attended a CCT session dedicated to discussing the implications of artificial intelligence for terrorist groups and counterterrorism efforts.

As OSCE PA Special Representative on Antisemitism, Racism, and Intolerance, Sen. Ben Cardin issued an urgent letter to all delegations ahead of the Winter Meeting, drawing attention to the worrying spike in “instances of harassment against Jews, Muslim, and other minorities” across the OSCE region. He also highlighted the upcoming 20th anniversary of the 2004 Berlin Declaration that recognized antisemitism as a “threat to democracy, human rights, and the security of the OSCE region and beyond.”

The next statutory meeting of the OSCE PA is the Annual Session that will take place from June 29-July 3 in Bucharest, Romania.