OSCE faces regular restrictions on its activities in occupied Donbas

Published Feb. 20, 2019. Updated Feb. 20 at 7:25 pm

Members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Observer Mission, Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, arrive for the test flight of the unmanned aerial vehicle Camcopter S-100 along the eastern front line near Ukraine's village of Stepanivka in the Donetsk region, about thirty kilometers from the front line between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army on March 28, 2018.

Photo by AFP

Members of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine continue facing large-scale restrictions in their activities in the Russia-occupied part of Ukraine’s Donbas, as well as in the temporarily uncontrolled stretch of the state border of Ukraine and Russia, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said.

“The SMM continues to suffer from large-scale restrictions in its daily activities in the occupied territory,” he said during a debate at the UN General Assembly titled, “The situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine” in New York City on Feb. 20.

Poroshenko also noted that the Russian Federation is blocking the monitoring activities of the OSCE SMM in areas near the temporarily uncontrolled section of the state border.

He also thanked all the countries that actively contribute to the OSCE SMM’s work.