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Ukrainian parliament establishes Donbass monitoring mission, says MP

The mission was formed within the initiative of the National Security Committee

KIEV, November 6. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) has established a monitoring mission in Donbass, member of the Rada’s Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence Maryana Bezuglaya said during a briefing on Wednesday.

"Within the initiative of the National Security Committee, a permanent monitoring mission of parliamentary control was established to establish what is going on in the zone where the operation is held, namely, the zone of disengagement of forces and equipment," she said. "We shall act as mediators between the population, the military, the executive branch, to find out what is going on, to find out how to help," the MP added.

During the latest trip to Zolotoye, Bezuglaya informed that the monitoring mission communicated with the military, the local population and the volunteers in the area. She noted that the situation with providing medical aid to local population had improved.

A framework agreement on disengagement of forces in Donbass was signed by Ukraine, Russia, the OSCE and the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Lugansk in September 2016. The disengagement process was completed near Zolotoye and Petrovskoye in October 2016. Disengagement near Stanitsa Luganskaya was never carried out under Ukraine’s former President Pyotr Poroshenko. Moreover, Ukrainian troops returned to their former positions in Petrovskoye and Zolotoye.

The sides got back to the implementation of the 2016 agreement only after the presidential elections in Ukraine when Kiev formed a new delegation to the Contact Group. In late June 2019, the parties finally disengaged forces near Stanitsa Luganskaya. The disengagement of forces near Zolotoye started on October 29. The OSCE SMM was notified on November 1 by the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) about the completion of that process, and on November 2 a similar notification was submitted by Kiev.

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