OSCE SMM Monitors Can't Determine Who Starts Skirmishes in Donbass - Moscow

Observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine do not cope with the task of determining who exactly starts shooting in Donbass, violating the ceasefire, Russia's plenipotentiary envoy to the Trilateral Contact Group Boris Gryzlov said in an interview with Rossiya 24 television channel.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Gryzlov said the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is trying to determine who starts each shootout.

"It's very difficult for them, because shootouts mostly take place at night, and at night the OSCE SMM does not work. They can only register the presence of shots, but do not even determine from which side the grenades, mines or just someone's bullets are flying," he said.

Gryzlov said the SMM today "should register not only how many cases of shelling occurred, but to register how many on which side and who started first. Unfortunately, they do not cope with this today," he said.

The Donbass conflict erupted in April 2014 as a local counter-reaction to the West-sponsored Maidan coup in Kiev that had toppled President Viktor Yanukovych in February. Residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions held independence referendums and proclaimed the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Kiev has since been conducting a military operation, encountering stiff local resistance.

In February 2015, Kiev forces and Donbass independence supporters signed a peace agreement in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in Donbass, as well as constitutional reforms that would give a special status to the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Despite the agreement brokered by the Normandy Four states (Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine), the ceasefire regime is regularly violated, with both sides accusing each other of multiple breaches, undermining the terms of the accord.