You're reading: OSCE observers held captive by Russian Cossacks for weeks in Luhansk region

When the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) sent monitors to Ukraine’s southeast in late April, nobody could have predicted how hard and dangerous their mission would be. 

Since then dozens of OSCE
observers have faced threats and abductions. Eight of them are currently being
kept as hostages in Luhansk region after they were captured more than three
weeks ago by armed Russian-backed separatists without any promise of when they
could be released.

They are being kept in much harsher
conditions than a previous group of seven members of an OSCE military
observation mission who were captured in Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast on April
25 and released after a week of
negotiations.     

“In Sloviansk we had daily
contact with our people as well as (Vyacheslav) Ponomarev (then local leader of
separatists), we saw the hostages and were able to bring some food for them,”
said Michael Bociurkiw, an OSCE spokesman in Kyiv. “But now it’s different.”

No separatist group has claimed
responsibility for abducting and holding the OSCE observers, nor has any
publicly declared any demands in return for their release, complicating the
efforts to rescue them.

But mounting evidence and
sources show they are being kept by Russian-backed paramilitary Cossacks, and
most likely being used as human shields to prevent airstrikes by Ukrainian
military forces. 

The first group of four
monitors, including Swiss, Danish, Turkish and Estonian nationals, was detained
on May 26 in the mining town of Torez, near the border between Donetsk and
Luhansk oblasts. The group was immediately taken east to Atratsyt and is now believed
to be kept in nearby Pervalsk, a suburb of Alchevsk, Luhansk Oblast. The OSCE
says it believes this is where they are being held because a white OSCE vehicle
driven by insurgents that has been seen on the streets of Perevalsk. 

The second group of monitors,
including a Spanish, Dutch, Russian and German national (a woman), and one
local translator were captured on May 29 at a separatist checkpoint in Sievierodonetsk, where the monitors are still being kept, according
to Kyiv Post sources. The translator was later released.

On May 17, the OSCE
office managed to establish contact with all the captured monitors, confirming that
they are “alive and unharmed,” Botsiurkiv said, adding that many of the monitors
used to work in military or law enforcement, or have years of experience in
international missions with the UN or OSCE.

Various media and security
sources indicate that both groups were abducted and now kept under the orders
of Nikolay Kozitsyn, ataman of Army of the Don and a Russian national.

Cossack ataman Nikolay Kozitsyn.

In early June Ukraine’s State
Security Service (SBU) released an intercepted phone conversation of Kozitsyn, in
which he orders his subversives to hold captive the OSCE representatives,
saying he received commands from above to do so.

“Comrade General! My guys
stopped a column of OSCE observers. What should we do with them?” an insurgent
asks Kozitsyn in the call.

Kozitsyn reponds: “Lyosha,
here’s the command: gather all their documents, find them a room, but without
any sharp objects and setup guards. Hide the car in some kind of garage so that
no one can see it. Got it?”

“This command came from above.
From far-far away,” he adds.

Another conversation indicated
that an insurgent leader named Igor (most likely Igor Girkin, commander of insurgents
in Sloviansk) was sending a request to Kozitsyn to release the OSCE
representatives. Kozitsyn, however, refused to do so.

“Even the ‘top’ knows about it
and you do not have to do anything. Tell me that they are aware in
Belokamennaya (historical epithet meaning Moscow),” a voice purported to
be Kozitsyn can be heard saying, referring to a commander above him.

In a phone conversation with
the Kyiv Post on June 18, Kozitsyn confirmed that his people were keeping
foreign hostages, but denied they were from the OSCE.

“They are our guests. They are
being fed and given water and are allowed to use the bathroom. They will stay
with us until we push ‘Ukrops’ (Ukrainian forces) back to Kyiv,” Kozitsyn said.

“We are keeping them here so
that they see what it means, the bombing (by Ukrainian forces),” he added.

According to information
available on the internet, Kozitsyn participated in military conflicts in Transnistria
and negotiations on behalf of Russian Cossacks with Jokhar Dudayev in Chechnya
and Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia. He is reported to have been rewarded by the
FSB Russian State Security Service.

Kozitsyn is said to have arrived
in eastern Ukraine together with his Cossacks in early May to fight against
Ukrainian forces. His group, comprised of several thousand fighters, managed to
seize control of a large part of Luhansk Oblast but has butted-heads with the
leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, according to Oleksiy
Svetikov, journalists and activists from Sievierodonetsk.

“There are reasons to consider
that the aim of keeping (the OSCE representatives) is to use the international
observers as human shields in order to prevent the Ukrainian army from shooting
the building,” Svetikov said in an interview with the Ukrinform news agency.

OSCE officials say they appealed
to all possible government and security bodies in Ukraine and Russia, and even
asked the Orthodox Church, which has close links to the Cossacks, to help with the
release of its observers. Despite the efforts, they have been unsuccessful so
far.

For now, the OSCE mission continues
its work in the east, but is keeping a much lower profile than a month ago. It is
also planning to cut its number of monitors in the eastern regions.

“When they (OSCE monitors) are
released, it’s a big question if we will go on this way,” Bociurkiw said.