The number of observers of the special monitoring mission (CMM) of the OSCE in the Donbass will be increased from 700 to 1,000 people. This was announced during his working visit to Kiev by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria, now presiding in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Sebastian Kurtz. On June 7, after a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Pavel Klimkin, Kurtz told journalists that the issue of improving the technical capabilities of the mission monitoring the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements by the parties in the Donbass. According to him, it is necessary to effectively monitor the situation at night.
This news caused only modest approval from the Ukrainian side. Despite Klimkin's recognition of the fact that the mission to date is the only way to control the "Russian aggressor," the minister added that this is not enough, writes DW.
Klimkin is sure that without the OSCE's armed police mission and its constant control over the border section, now beyond the control of the Ukrainian authorities, consideration of the issue of local elections in that part of Donbass that is in the hands of pro-Russian separatists is impossible. "A police mission is a matter that must necessarily be agreed," Klimkin said during a joint press conference with his Austrian counterpart.
Technical solution for OSCE observers The importance of the OSCE special monitoring mission in the Donbass is also said by Ukrainian experts. Mikhail Samus, deputy director of the Center for Army Studies, Conversion and Disarmament on International Issues, assures that the presence of international observers in the conflict zone does not allow pro-Russian militants to act uncontrolled, thus stabilizing the situation. In addition, thanks to the OSCE mission, the world community has a reliable source of objective information from the Donbass, the expert believes.
However, in his opinion, an increase in the number of observers by 300 people will not significantly affect the course of events in eastern Ukraine. "On the scale of the country and even in the scale of the Donbass, it's very few people to fundamentally improve the effectiveness of the mission's own tasks," - says Samus. According to him, the increase in the mission has purely technical reasons. "I think that in the mission itself it is considered as an opportunity to improve the monitoring conditions and solve organizational issues - for example, to lift the increased load from some patrols, which has arisen because of the insufficient number of observers," explains the expert..
However, former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko believes that the decision announced by Kurz is too early to be considered final. He reminds that it is worth waiting for the decision of the permanent council of the OSCE. After all, Moscow's position as a barrier to increasing the number of observers of the OSCE CMM can be. The Kremlin, according to the diplomat, has no motivation to contribute to the stabilization of Donbass. "The armed conflict in the east of Ukraine is a means by which the Kremlin holds both Kiev and the West tense, so it is not in its interests to contribute to the improvement of the situation," says Ogryzko.
UN peacekeepers or OSCE armed police?.
As for the prospects for the creation of an OSCE military police mission in the Donbas, Samus is skeptical about this. According to him, the representatives of this organization remained neutral observers, whose task was to record compliance of all parties to the conflict with the agreements reached. According to the expert, this normalization of the situation can be achieved only if the UN peacekeeping mission is introduced into the territory of the conflict.
However, Samus warns - the scale of such a mission should be much larger than the current, even a slightly enlarged contingent of observers. "We need about 20 thousand people with the right to use weapons so that they have the opportunity to really monitor the state of affairs," explains the military expert.
Vladimir Ogryzko adds - Ukraine's hopes for an armed police mission, and even more so - of UN peacekeepers, hardly have a chance to be realized. The dispatch of such a mission to the Donbass, according to the diplomat, would be beneficial to the West and Ukraine, because it could really help to stop the bloodshed. "But the positions of the parties are so opposite on this issue, that for Moscow to agree to such a mission would be to admit defeat," says Ogryzko.
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