US: Russia continues to intimidate OSCE observers in Donbas
The United States accuses Russia of continuing to intimidate the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in the Donbas, and preventing it from carrying out its tasks. A statement to this effect was made by US Chargé d'Affaires Harry Kamian on Thursday, January 11, Ukrinform reports.
“The SMM in Ukraine is a critically important component of the OSCE response. The SMM plays an important role in the process of implementing the Minsk agreements. However, Russia and her proxies continue to intimidate, harass and attack our observers, and also restrict their access, stopping them from fulfilling their mandate,” the US representative explained.
He emphasized that the Mission should have the opportunity to provide the OSCE member states with timely reporting on the situation on the ground, “even in Crimea, which remains an integral part of Ukraine, and is thus under the SMM mandate”.
Kamian urged the organization’s president in to “head the efforts to integrate and improve the SMM’s security functions, its execution of operations and its management”.
Earlier the OSCE said that Russia was continuing behavior which undermined the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.