'Drinking day and night': OSCE mission fails to properly act in Donbas – Luhansk governor
Gennady Moskal, Governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, blames OSCE observers for improper monitoring the situation in war-torn Donbas and reneging on their mission.
Moskal expressed his opinion on their performance after pro-Russian militants’ massive attacks on the positions of Ukrainian troops in Maryintka on June, 3.
“The highly-regarded OSCE should not have hung out at a restaurant in the hotel ‘Mir’, from morning to night drinking beer and whiskey, but it should have visited the [conflict] area … I always see them in the hotel where they are staying . <…>. I started asking the waiters [of the restaurant of ‘Mir’]: “Is this the English club, or what?”he said and added that the observers do not want to go to the territory which is controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
“Observers are risking their lives in Donbas,” Michael Bociurkiw, a representativr of the OSCE mission, responded to the allegations.
On Friday the UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting on the situation in Ukraine.
The Minsk agreements, which were signed in February, provide for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line. But the conditions set are hardly observed. The Kremlin accuses Kyiv of violating the agreements. According to OSCE observers, however, it is the separatists who started firing from heavy weapons, including tanks.
