The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will only be able to deploy its observers to all parts of eastern Ukraine when a cease-fire takes hold, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland said on Oct. 8.
“The OSCE mission has a civillian monitoring mission, it is not a military mission. It has been able to work in those parts of the special status zone where there is peace but where they are most needed, were the shooting is still continuing they are not able to work which is why we joined President (Petro) Poroshenko in insisting that the cease fire will be honored in full, “ Nuland told the Kyiv Post during her visit to the mobile detachment of Ukraine’s state border guard service in Bortnychi in Kyiv Oblast.
At least 3,660 civilians were killed and 8,756 wounded in eastern Ukraine from mid-April to Oct. 6, according to the United Nations Human Rights report released on Oct.8. Meanwhile, at least 331 casualties were recorded since the cease fire began, between Sept. 6 and Oct.6, according to the UN report.
Restoring control over Ukraine-Russia border as well as internal line on the edge of special status zone in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts is another important condition for OSCE to be able to work in full, Nuland said. “The sooner there is peace, the sooner there is full agreement on the international border between Ukraine and Russia and the Russian proxy separatists, the sooner the OSCE will be able to deploy there along with your border guards,” she said.
President Petro Poroshenko said on Oct.7 that he would like to have 1,500 OSCE observers in Ukraine, but so far the total number of OSCE watchers in Ukraine is 270, including 90 in eastern Ukraine. The US, OSCE’s biggest member, has offered its 70 monitors and is offering equipment to OSCE mission, Nuland said.
In the meantime, the US continues providing financial support to Ukraine’s state border guard service. Special equipment and vehicles like trucks, escalators, armored buses worth $3 million have been already received and used by Ukraine’s border guard service while armored patrol cars, thermal vision and other devices worth $12 million are now being purchased within partnership beetween the US government and Ukraine’s state border guard service.
Additional $10 million in body armor, protective gear, SUVs, petrol vehicles and thermal vision devices, $1.4 million for the state export control and border services, according to Nuland.
“In this struggle to achieve your objectives, that you have struggled so hard for this year and that some have lost their lives for, it is the state border guards who are on the front lines of reestablishing ukraine’s sovereignity and territorial integrity,” Nuland said, as she exchanged protocols on further cooperation between US government and Ukraine’s state border guard service, with Viktor Nazarenko, deputy chief of state border guard service.
These are remarks by Nuland in Kyiv on Oct. 8
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected]
