OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine: Ceasefire is necessary in Donbass

18.11.2017, Ukraine.

On November 17, at a briefing, the Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine Alexander Hug called for a ceasefire in the conflict in Donbass, RIA Novosti News Agency reports.

“A ceasefire is required. A ceasefire respected by the sides will not bring end to the conflict, if sustainable and irreversible it will, however, create a conducive environment to implement other measures agreed in Minsk… This violence must also stop because it risks escalation and even greater numbers of civilian casualties … Such escalation is inevitable if the violence is not stopped now”, Hug said.

He added that only this year, more than 400 civilians in  Donbass were killed or wounded.

He also said that during the last week, the OSCE SMM recorded over 6,000 ceasefire violations.

Since May 2014, the Ukrainian army has been continuously firing on localities of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, who declared their independence after the coup d’etat in Kiev.

According to UN, from the start of the conflict in Donbass and as of 15 May 2017, at least 10,000 people, including 2,777 civilians, have been killed. The report emphasizes that this is only the reported loss, however, the real figures may be much higher. In addition, from 7,000 to 9,000 civilians were wounded. Most of all, the residents suffered from shelling.

The ratio of injured civilians in the conflict on both sides of the front is indicative. Thus, according to the OSCE CMM report released in September, there were 28 civilians killed and 120 injured on the Ukrainian side in 2017. In the same period, 57 people were killed and 224 were injured in Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

Editorial Comments

It is notable that Alexander Hug has been accused many times of supporting the Ukrainian army, one of the parties to the conflict. This way, on February 17, at the press conference in Lugansk, he was directly accused of the fact that the OSCE “does not notice” the armored vehicles of the Ukrainian army, which shoots directly from residential areas.

“We do not understand why the Mission does not notice the Ukrainian tanks, which are located near residential houses and infrastructure facilities. If we start responding to the shelling, the residential buildings will inevitably suffer, and they know it. As a result, the entire world will only see the independent People’s Republics destroying houses on the other side”, Igor Plotnitsky said to Hug. Hug didn’t respond and turned the conversation to another topic.

Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency

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