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Moscow hopes OSCE Ukraine mission’s new principal deputy chief will be unbiased

Alexander Hug will step down late next month

UNITED NATIONS, September 28. /TASS/. Russia hopes that the successor of Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, Alexander Hug, who will step down late next month, will be impartial, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told TASS.

"At the meeting with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger, the issue on the personnel was discussed in general," Grushko said. "We consider that such positions [of Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE SMM] should be filled by people, who are absolutely professional, impartial and unbiased."

On September 25, Alexander Hug announced that he would resign on October 31. In an interview with Kommersant, Hug said one can work in the OSCE structures no more than 10 years and he had come to that limit. According to the OSCE headquarters in Vienna, Hug’s successor will be Mark Etherington, Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine.