You're reading: OSCE says use of heavy weapons declines in Donbas

The situation in Donbas has a tendency towards de-escalation, OSCE SMM Principal Deputy Chief Monitor Alexander Hug said.

The security situation improved in the past week and the OSCE SMM has registered a 20 percent decline in the number of ceasefire breaches, Hug told a Skype conference on Feb. 24. The OSCE SMM registered 180 situations of the use of tanks, mortars and artillery in the past week, against 884 in the previous week, he said. That is, the number of such situations has declined by 80 percent, he said.

Hug characterized this situation as relatively calm. Monitors heard 86 explosions of an unknown origin, five shots fired with grenade launchers, and five explosions of mortar mines of 82 m caliber, he said.

A total of 298 explosions and situations of gunfire were registered in the DPR-controlled Debaltseve on Feb. 22, he said. Three hundred such situations were registered in the Kyiv-controlled Svitlodarsk on Feb. 22 morning, he said.

Obviously, the situation will not change for as long as there are weapons there and the sides are close to each other, he said.
Hug also said the conflict sides have still not withdrawn heavy weapons from the contact line.

OSCE SMM monitors have registered six howitzers on the territories controlled by the Ukrainian authorities and two tanks and two combat infantry vehicles with anti-tank systems installed on them on the territories uncontrolled by the Ukrainian authorities, he said. It follows from that that the sides have not withdrawn heavy weapons and are actively using them, he said, adding that the sides have not provided information on the location of the weapons withdrawn earlier.