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OSCE SMM reports growing number of ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine

VIENNA, November 7. /TASS/. Observers from the Special Monitoring Mission /SMM/ to Ukraine of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe /OSCE/ on Friday reported a growing number of violations of the ceasefire regime in eastern Ukraine.

“The SMM visited the headquarters of the Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination (JCCC) in Debaltseve (55km north-east of Donetsk) and received a joint log sheet from Ukrainian and Russian military representatives of incidents reported during the previous 24hrs. The log sheet indicated a trend of increased ceasefire violations in the period between 3 and 6 November,” the document says.

On Thursday, Russia’s Permanent Representative at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Andrei Kelin said that the issue “of non-fulfillment by the Kiev authorities of the Minsk agreements, both the protocol and the memorandum, and the Geneva communiquй” had been raised at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council. “It includes the tank attacks against the Yasinovataya settlement and the selling that killed the boys in Donetsk,” he said.

Also OSCE has suspended the operation of drones in eastern Ukraine due to the risk of jamming.

“The existence of military grade jamming capacities within Donetsk region, as used on 3 November against the SMM unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), remains a substantial concern for UAV flights. Following a flight risk assessment, the SMM UAV was not deployed on 6 November,” the report said.

The mission’s report of November 3 said that “at 13.01hrs and again at 13.19hrs the SMM UAV was subjected to serious electronic jamming while flying over “DPR” [Donetsk People’s Republic]-controlled Chermalyk (40km NE of Mariupol). Initial analysis of the SMM UAV flight log data indicated that the SMM UAV was subjected to military-grade GPS jamming.”