“The [Special Monitoring Mission] SMM is obliged to respond to these signals, check, confirm or deny the information. That is precisely its main function – to monitor the security situation,” Alexander Lukashevich said at the weekly Permanent Council.
Lukashevich cited the February 4-9 OSCE SMM detection of 15 Grad multiple rocket launchers, 40 howitzers and 12 anti-tank guns amassing along the line of contact.
“The observers found 43 anti-tank guns, 10 mortars and four tanks unaccounted for in Ukrainian warehouses in the same period,” he underscored.
The envoy warned that the OSCE SMM reports of troop and equipment deployment in the Donbas demonstrated the Ukrainian forces’ “readiness to resume large-scale hostilities.”
OSCE SMM was deployed in southeastern Ukraine to observe the implementation of the peace agreements reached by the government and pro-independence forces.
The agreements were signed in the Belarusian capital of Minsk following Russian, French and German mediation, first in September 2014 then in February 2015.
