Russia Proposes Special OSCE Group to Monitor Donbass Elections

Sergei Lavrov said that Russia proposes to create a group of observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor security of the forthcoming elections in Eastern Ukraine.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia proposes to create a group of observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor security of the forthcoming elections in Eastern Ukraine along with local militias, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"We proposed to expand the OSCE mission, or, more correctly, to create a separate group of observers for a period of elections, which would patrol along with militias of Donetsk and Lugansk and would monitor how the security is provided," Lavrov stated in a televised interview on Russia's Vesti v Subbotu weekly news program.

He added that at the moment the OSCE discussed the additional measures the organizations could take to ensure security of the vote in the eastern Ukraine.

In February 2015, a peace agreement was signed between the two sides to the Ukrainian conflict in the Belarusian capital Minsk. Under the deal, constitutional reforms aimed at decentralizing power in Ukraine and the initiation of local elections in Donbass should have been concluded before the end of 2015.

The country's breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk agreed to postpone their local elections until 2016. Before elections in those regions can take place, Ukrainian authorities must fulfill all their obligations under the Minsk peace agreement.