Hug: Minsk agreements are violated 8000 times each week
The situation in eastern Ukraine has escalated since the beginning of the year with the Minsk Agreements being violated nearly 8,000 times in recent weeks.
Inosmi.ru reported that this was stated by the Deputy Head of the Special OSCE monitoring mission in Donbas, Alexander Hug, during an interview with the Bild newspaper.
“We started this year with a small number of violations of the ceasefire agreement. However, we have seen a steady increase in that number since that time. The largest number of these violations occurred during the Orthodox Easter in May. During that time, 10,000 violations were recorded per week. The number then decreased a little but over the last week, the average number of violations per week has reached 8,000. Every shot that we hear is a breach for us. We recorded 50 to 60 violations just for yesterday,” Hug said.
He said that the situation is unstable. “There are days when there is a small amount of violations, and there are days when there is a large amount,” Hug said.
He also said that the opposing sides are moving towards each other.
“We first noticed the advance of forces of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic across the river near the Luhansk village. This river forms part of the front line! They are now much further along the bridge but on the north side of the river, which is the Ukrainian side. In response to this, Ukraine is 300 meters from the location of the line of contact,” he said.
“They can now see each other and that didn’t happen before. Thousands of civilians are crossing the bridge and exposing themselves to a great risk every day,” Hug continued.
He said that on the 2nd of June, one of the OSCE drones was blinded and shot down by so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) militants. The last video shot by the drone shows anti-aircraft guns aimed at it. The mission has called for an investigation of the incident but the DPR has not complied and will not allow the observers to investigate.
“Nobody who has used these anti-aircraft guns has been prosecuted even though the weapons are a direct violation of the Minsk Agreements. On the 1st of June, an OSCE drone filmed a 9L33 type Osa Russian missile system. The next day, in the same area, our drone was shot down,” Hug said in outrage.
“Those who are destroying our equipment do so in order to hide things. Those who blind us conduct an attack on the whole process of observation and this is an obstacle for the peace process,” he added.
In response to the publication of pictures of a high-tech jamming system in DPR-controlled territory, Hug said that this requires an explanation.
Hug was also asked whether the observers saw systems of electronic warfare, which may lead to the drones falling, on the Ukrainian side. He said they did not.