Shelling in Donbas is intensifying and the life of civilians is worsening, Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine Alexander Hug said on Wednesday.
A Russian-separatist militant threatened to kill members of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s monitoring mission in Ukraine, he told journalists.
“Just this morning, in Bezimine (Southern Donetsk Oblast) down at the Azov Sea a DPR member threatened to kill our observers should they come to the checkpoint (he was manning) another time,” Hug said.
He also said OSCE monitors had faced other cases of physical and verbal threats in recent days, and in some cases the incidents had appeared to be organized.
The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) states that heavy weaponry is missing in some of the ammunition depots of Ukraine’s army and in the territory of the unrecognised Donetsk and Luhansk republics in Donbas, which is in violation of the Minsk agreements.
“The sides continue to make it difficult for us to monitor the process of the withdrawal of heavy weapons,” Hug said at a press conference in Donetsk.
According to him, last week the OSCE visited two Ukrainian heavy weapons holding areas, and found them abandoned.
At the same time, the mission also revisited 18 DPR holding areas, and five of them had weapons missing. “At one area the DPR members told us that 11 Grad systems had been moved to Donetsk city,” Hug stressed.
The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) faces resistance to its work in a form of damping of their drones, Hug noted.
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According to the Minsk II peace agreement signed between the warring sides in Ukraine on Feb. 12, a ceasefire was supposed to have come into effect on Feb. 15, and weapons of calibers greater than 100 millimeters were to have been withdrawn out of range of the front line to OSCE-monitored holding areas.
Ukraine on Monday accused rebels of carrying out the heaviest shelling since the truce was agreed. Russia denies any role in the fighting. However, Ukraine and the West say there is a growing body of evidence pointing to direct involvement from Moscow.
www.belsat.eu/en/, following KyivPost
