VIENNA, February 13. /TASS/. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine will continue to work under its mandate without interruption, OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid said on Sunday.
"Very grateful for the exceptional work of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission & office of the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine. They will continue to fulfil their mandates, without interruption," she wrote on her Twitter account.
The situation in Donbass deteriorated dramatically on January 9, when Ukrainian troops resumed shelling along the entire contact line after a lengthy ceasefire.
Additional measures to control the ceasefire along the contact line in Donbass have been in force since July 27, 2020. The agreement came a year after the so-called indefinite ceasefire was declared by the parties on July 21, 2019, following more than 20 futile attempts to stop hostilities. Under the agreement, the parties to the conflict are banned from staging offensive and reconnaissance operations, the use of any type of drone, opening fire, including from sniper weapons, and deploying heavy weapons in populated localities and adding engineering equipment at their positions. One of the key provisions is the use of disciplinary measures for ceasefire violations.