You're reading: Almost 800 working for OSCE in Ukraine, including 489 monitors

DONETSK - The mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe working in Ukraine has almost 800 members today, OSCE Special Monitoring Mission Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug told reporters.

Seventeen new monitors joined the mission this week, he said. Two-thirds of the mission are working in Ukraine’s eastern regions, and the number of observers, including international and domestic employees, exceeds 800 people, he said.

Hug said he had come to Donbas for two days.

Hug said he had arrived in Donetsk from Mariupol on Saturday afternoon and intended to visit Donetsk and Luhansk over these two days. The OSCE official said that on Sunday morning he would go to Horlivka, where the OSCE SMM is currently trying to secure a suspension of gunfire in order to restore water supplies. Hug said that afterwards he would visit Avdiyivka and Peski and would then head to Luhansk, where he would spend the night, and on Monday he would inspect flash points on the line of contact north of Luhansk. Hug said that afterwards he would go to Kyiv and would travel to the Belarusian capital Minsk on July 7 to attend a Contact Group meeting.

Hopefully, during a meeting of the trilateral Contact Group’s security sub-group in Minsk, the sides will be able to formalize the issue of Shyrokyne demilitarization, he said.