“It’s assumed that already by midday tomorrow, by Saturday, the maximum number of observers will be focused in the conflict zone. There are currently around 230 of them there, and by tomorrow we will increase their numbers to 350,” Kelin said on Rossiya-24 television.
The functions of the observers from the OSCE operating in Ukraine’s conflict zone will be changed, Russian OSCE ambassador said.
“The observers’ functions will now change, this is obvious. Up until now they did more investigating on what had happened post factum. They were patrolling and went out to the areas where the loudest events occurred,” Kelin said.
“Now we’re talking about something else, where they’ll observe the pulling back of [heavy] weapons to the needed distance as was defined in the complex of measures accepted in Minsk…so that the ceasefire becomes both stable and strong enough,” Kelin added.
The three-party Contact Group along with the self-proclaimed eastern Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics will develop tasks for the OSCE to fulfill the Minsk agreements, Andrei Kelin said Friday.
Statements that Kiev refuses to fulfill a range of points from the Minsk agreements is not helping the process of settling the Ukrainian crisis, Andrei Kelin said.
“I had a very strange impression from statements that were heard coming out of Kiev that there would be no amnesty, but there would be a law that would cover only a limited number of individuals that would be removed from any sort of repression, as well as a recent statement from the [Ukrainian] parliament that there would not be any constitutional reform. We won’t move very far, of course, if we approach the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements this way,” he said.
A 12-point reconciliation deal, agreed upon in Belarus on Thursday, outlines steps that are needed to be taken to bring peace to eastern Ukraine. They include the establishment of a buffer zone between the warring parties; the withdrawal of heavy artillery; a pardon for those involved in the armed conflict; safe access to humanitarian aid; a special status for self-proclaimed eastern republics and local elections there under Ukrainian laws; and a constitutional reform to perpetuate the decentralization of Ukraine.
The ceasefire is to begin Saturday midnight. It will be monitored by OSCE using all means at its disposal, including drones and satellites.
