A Russian-separatist militant threatened to kill members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s monitoring mission in Ukraine, Alexander Hug, the deputy chief monitor said at a press conference in Donetsk on Aug. 19.
“Just this morning, in Bezimine (Southern Donetsk Oblast)
down at the Azov Sea a DPR member threatened to kill our observers should they
come to the checkpoint (he was manning) another time,” Hug said.
He also said OSCE monitors had faced other cases of physical
and verbal threats in recent days, and in some cases the incidents had appeared
to be organized.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has
seen a sharp surge in violence in Ukraine’s Donbas war zone over the past two
weeks, Hug said.
He said the OSCE had observed both sides using Grad multiple
rocket systems and 152-millimeter artillery in recent violations of the ceasefire,
as fighting in the Donbas surged.
He added that the OSCE’s monitoring UAV, which started
flying again in recent weeks, had again experienced “military-grade jamming.”
“The sides continue to make it difficult for us to monitor
the process of the withdrawal of heavy weapons,” Hug said.
He said the OSCE had visited in the previous week two
Ukrainian heavy weapons holding areas, and had found them abandoned.
“We also revisited 18 DPR holding areas, and five of them
had weapons missing. At one area the DPR members told us that 11 Grad systems had
been moved to Donetsk city.”
“We also continue to observe large-caliber weapons all along
the contact line,” Hug said.
According to the Minsk II peace agreement signed between the
warring sides in Ukraine on Feb. 12, a ceasefire was supposed to have come into
effect on Feb. 15, and weapons of calibers greater than 100 millimeters were to
have been withdrawn out of range of the front line to OSCE-monitored holding
areas.
Hug also complained that the Russian-separatists were making
“conflicting demands of the OSCE mission in Ukraine.
“The mission continues to struggle with conflicting demands
by the so-called DPR and the so-called LPR,” Hug said. “On the one hand, they
publically criticize us for not sending enough people (to monitor), and on the
other hand they do not allow us to actually reach these locations, by denying
us access to these locations.”
Kyiv Post editor Euan
MacDonald can be reached at [email protected].
