MOSCOW, July 14. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia's checkpoints of Donetsk and Gukovo are ready for an international monitoring mission, Russia's permanent representative to the OSCE Andrei Kelin said.

This decision does not require the OSCE Standing Committee approval. Observers are invited for a period of three months, Kelin said.

“We started working with the OSCE to take the soonest decision for deploying observers at the checkpoints,” Kelin said.

“The OSCE Standing Committee is to take a decision and determine models for observers’ work,” he said.

The OSCE Secretary-General has the right to give such instruction before the decision is approved by the Standing Committee, Kelin said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sent a letter to this effect to the chairman-in-office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Monday, July 14.

"Russia has also submitted a draft resolution to the OSCE Standing Committee on the deployment of observers. We hope that the document will be approved shortly," the ministry says.

“We’re sure that this step will help create favourable conditions for ceasing fire and starting an inclusive and transparent dialogue in Ukraine in compliance with the Geneva statement of April 17 and the Berlin declaration of July 2,” the ministry says.

EU countries are de facto siding with those who support the use of force for solving the internal Ukrainian conflict by imposing additional sanctions against representatives of the South-East of Ukraine, Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Yuri Matery added.

“The abovementioned decision of the EU Council shows that the European Union has not yet realised that the practice of talking to the people in the South-East of Ukraine, who are defending their rights, in the language of ultimatums and sanctions will lead nowhere. By making such decisions not only do our EU partners not encourage the Kiev authorities to begin a real dialogue with their population but they de facto side with the advocates of a forcible solution to the international Ukrainian conflict,” the diplomat said.

“Instead, the European Union should be focusing on using its levers to compel Kiev to reach a mutually agreed and lasting ceasefire within the framework of the Berlin Declaration of the ministers of foreign affairs of Russia, Germany, Ukraine and France of July 2 of this year and to actively assist in the settlement of the conflict, including within the Contact Group of representatives from Russia, the OSCE, Ukraine and protesting regions in the South-East of Ukraine,” Matery said.