MOSCOW, November 23. /TASS/. Moscow expects that the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will enhance its monitoring activities and prepare a report on civilian casualties in the Donbass conflict, the Foreign Ministry cited Russia’s OSCE envoy Alexander Lukashevich as saying.
"We call on the Mission to intensify its monitoring activities along the contact line. A new thematic report on civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure is needed," he stressed. "Since September 16, 2017 (date of publication of the last thematic report), many facts of shelling residential areas of Donbass by the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been documented."
Russia’s OSCE envoy added that Kiev’s military forces make attempts to limit the SMM’s monitoring activities. "Last week, long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were jammed near Vyskryva, Stepanovka, Vershina, Mironovskiy, Prychepilovka and Popasnaya," he stated.
According to the diplomat, growing tensions in Donbass are because of Kiev’s unwillingness to comply with the Minsk agreements. "Ukrainian negotiators in Minsk avoid addressing political aspects of the settlement, refusing to thoroughly discuss the issues of the special status, the constitutional reform, and amnesty. They nearly sabotage negotiations by resisting setting the "Steinmeier Formula" on paper and complying with the agreement of the leaders of the Normandy Four group on its inclusion in Ukrainian legislation, which had been confirmed twice at the summits of 2015 and 2016," Lukashevich emphasized.
The ‘Steinmeier formula’, as it’s known, signed in late 2015, is aimed at settling the Donbass conflict. It envisages the implementation of Ukrainian legislation on a special local self-government in some areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions on a temporary basis during the local election in Donbass, and on a permanent basis after the publication of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s report on its results.
Following the Minsk-hosted meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine, another truce dubbed the ‘back-to-school ceasefire’ came into force at midnight on August 29. Since the outbreak of hostilities in Donbass, the parties have reached more than 20 truces, but all efforts to establish a lasting armistice have failed so far.