Watch Latvian politician in extraordinary tirade to Putin delegation: “Russian warship, screw yourself” and declares it a “disgrace” that they are attending a UN security meeting

A Latvian politician was so outraged that a delegation from Moscow was allowed to attend a UN security meeting that he quoted defenders of Ukraine’s Snake Island as saying: “Russian warship, screw yourself.”

In his extraordinary and impassioned speech, Rihards Kols said it was “a shame” that Vladimir Putin’s delegates were allowed to attend the meeting in Vienna.

Kols, visibly seething during his fiery speech, said he could no longer sit in the same room with Russian lawmakers and pretend “nothing happened” when thousands of Ukrainians have been killed since Putin’s invasion a year ago.

At one point, Kols pointed at the Russian delegation and accused them of being war criminals before citing Ukrainian sailors who defiantly defended Snake Island from the Russian Navy.

Kols took offense when he said: “I will deliver a message to the delegation of the Russian Federation sitting in this room and quote the Ukrainian border guards. Russian warship, screw yourself.’

This message of defiance – shouted over the radio by Ukrainian sailors after Putin’s troops ordered them to leave Snake Island – has become a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression.

The 19 Ukrainian soldiers on the island are believed to have died after Russian troops on the battleship Moskva bombarded the island with artillery fire, but they miraculously survived and were honored when they were returned to Ukrainian territory during a prisoner transfer last year.

Kols, whose chair was draped in a Ukrainian flag, cited those soldiers at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In a scathing speech, he said: “We say we stand by our principles and values ​​and statutes, and we don’t. I mean, there’s an elephant in this room called, the delegation of the Russian Federation.”

“I mean, if I was a witness and someone asked me who the war criminal was, I would have pointed to the back seats in this room,” Kol said, pointing to where the Russian delegation was sitting.

Kol, who was visibly angry at the time, said: “It is unfortunate that this delegation is here. Especially the delegation consisting of members approved in Russia, people who voted for the annexation of the territory of an independent country.” He wrote Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhia, Luhansk on his hand.

The Latvian politician raised his voice and added: “These are the principles that this institution promised to protect and uphold. And we sit here as if nothing happened.”

This handout photo, taken and released by Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service on July 7, 2022, shows the Ukrainian flag in the village of Bile on Snake Island in the Odessa region of the Black Sea

Later, when a Russian deputy began to speak at the gathering, a large number of delegates left the room in protest.

Austria issued visas to Russian lawmakers despite sanctions from the European Union and protests from 20 countries, including Britain, France and Canada.

The Austrian government has stated that it is obliged as host country to issue visas to representatives of all OSCE member states. Delegates from Ukraine and Lithuania did not attend the meeting in protest against Russia’s presence.

The Vienna-based OSCE, with 57 members that includes both Ukraine and Russia, was established during the Cold War as a platform for East-West dialogue.

The group has a broad mission, including peace, human rights, arms control and other security issues.

A Slovak delegate read a statement from the Ukrainian delegation, which said that “the presence of these warmongers in Vienna is an affront to everything the OSCE stands for.”

They are not here for real dialogue or cooperation,” she added. “They are here to spread their propaganda … they are here to try to justify the war crimes they have committed and to desecrate the principles of international law and human decency.”