The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (OSCE SMM) registered a doubling of the number of ceasefire violations in Donetsk and Luhansk regions during the period of October 10-16.
Alexander Hug, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine’s deputy chief monitor, announced this at a news briefing, Ukrainian News Agency reports.
According to him, the monitoring mission registered twice as many violations of the ceasefire along the line of contact in Donbas during the period of October 10-16, compared with the previous week.
Hug added that observers recorded a 9-fold increase in the number of violations of the “regime of silence” near Mariupol during this period.
He noted a link between the level of violence and the proximity of the positions of the forces and the hardware of the parties to conflict.
"Violence inevitably goes up where the parties are located close to each other," Hug said.
He added that during the period of one month since the beginning of the ceasefire, the parties have demonstrated that they are serious about the process of separation of forces and hardware in three areas along the line of separation. However, according to him, the process has stalled one month after signing of the relevant agreement.
Representatives of the Joint Center on Control and Coordination of the ceasefire and stabilization of the situation on the contact line (JCCC) have been unable to assist in granting the OSCE mission safe and unhindered access.
Hug attributed this to lack of trust between the parties.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, the OSCE mission earlier said that the parties of the conflict in Donbas had violated the framework decision on separation of forces and hardware in three areas along the line of contact in Donbas, which was adopted by the Trilateral Contact Group on resolution of the conflict in the Donbas (Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Russia).
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