Contents tagged with OSCE
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Hug: OSCE has seen soldiers wearing Russian insignias in the Donbas
The Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE SMM, Alexander Hug, said that monitors continue to face difficult circumstances in eastern Ukraine.
During an interview with Libération, Hug said that the soldiers “in the field say that we cannot be let through for the sake of our own security as the area has landmines”.
“It is also a violation of the agreements. These restrictions are always aimed at preventing us from seeing what they do not want us to see,” Hug continued.
He called the situation in …
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Poroshenko: Russia supported creation of armed OSCE mission in the Donbas
It was decided during the Berlin meeting of the Normandy Four, which consisted of the leaders of Ukraine, Germany, France and Russia, that the so-called armed OSCE police mission will be deployed to the Donbas. The mission will ensure that the region will be prepared for the local elections that will be held there. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said this at a press conference on the 20th of October after the meeting.
“We also agreed that no one will interfere with the work of the OSCE. …
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NATO will continue its policy of pressuring Moscow to implement agreements in Ukraine
The Deputy Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Alexander Vershbow, stated that NATO intends to keep pressure on Moscow until it begins to implement previously undertaken obligations on the Ukrainian issue, European Pravda reported. According to Vershbow, the security situation in the Euro-Atlantic region has significantly deteriorated due to annexation of the Crimea by Russia in 2014 and the subsequent participation of Russian servicemen in the Donbas.
Meanwhile, …
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Disengagement of separatist forces and the Ukrainian Army in the Donbas has been postponed
The disengagement of separatist forces the Ukrainian army in the that has been carried out in the village of Zolote has been postponed in other areas due to ceasefire violations, stated the head of the Ukrainian side of the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the ceasefire (JCCC), General Borys Kremenetsky, on the channel 112 Ukraine.
He said that an increasing number of attacks in the Donbas will affect the terms of disengagement on the border line.
“Of course it will have an effect, …
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LPR separatists denied OSCE observers access to Zolote
Members of the so-called Luhansk People's Republic once again did not allow the OSCE observers to monitor the situation in the Pervomaisk-Zolote region, as reported on the Facebook page of the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) of the OSCE.
“The LPR denied access to the Pervomaisk-Zolote region. The Special Monitoring Mission cannot monitor the implementation of the Minsk Agreements by the parties without access to the region. The SMM is able and ready to monitor,” the statement reads.
The …
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OSCE: Russian elections marred by restrictions on basic rights
The OSCE has stated that the Russian Duma elections were marred by restrictions on basic rights and democratic commitments, Reuters reported.
Putin’s political allies won a landslide victory during Sunday’s elections, and while monitors did notice some improvements over previous elections, tampering and fraud are still believed to have padded the vote numbers for United Russia, the Communist Party, the nationalist LDPR, and A Just Russia, all pro-Putin political parties.
According to Finnish …
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Klimkin: There wont be negotiations until Russia withdraws from eastern Ukraine
During a meeting with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Germany and France, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pavlo Klimkin, stated that Ukraine needs a guarantee that Russia will implement the Minsk Agreements in order to continue the work in the Normandy format. According to Klimkin, Ukraine wants to see clear and coherent steps from Russia in order for the conflict in the Donbas to be resolved.
“We fully understand that we need a …
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Germany views a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine as an unlikely scenario
Germany believes a full-scale Russian offensive against Ukraine to be unlikely but it doesn’t exclude such a scenario, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, stated in an interview with Apostrophe.
“Berlin doesn’t exclude that possibility but believes this scenario to be unlikely. If, God forbid, such an invasion occurs, I’m sure that Ukraine can expect serious strengthening of sanctions against the Kremlin. In addition, the provision of defensive weapons to us would become a …
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Klimkin: The OSCE is in deep crisis
Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin believes that in recent years the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been in deep crisis.
He made this statement in an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung German newspaper, the text of which was posted on Facebook of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine.
"In recent years, the OSCE has been in a deep crisis including its working structures - ODIHR (the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) and the HCNM ( …
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Ukrainian MFA demands that Russian-backed separatists stop attempting to intimidate OSCE
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has demanded that Russian-backed separatists stop trying to intimidate OSCE observers in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainskaya Pravda reported.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine strongly condemns the provocations that are regularly carried out by Russian-controlled fighters against the observers of the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) of the OSCE in Ukraine with the aim of preventing effective operations of the mission," a statement posted on the ministry’s …