OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) in Donbas has reported about new cases of hindering the work of monitors by Russia-backed illegal armed groups.
According to a daily report of SMM issued on Jan. 30, members of the illegal armed formations twice denied the SMM passage through a checkpoint near the settlement of Verkhnoshyrokivske.
“At a checkpoint west of Verkhnoshyrokivske (formerly Oktiabr, non-government controlled, 85km south of Donetsk), on two occasions, a member of the armed formations again denied the SMM passage, citing ‘ongoing engineering works in the area” on one occasion. While present, the SMM saw civilian traffic moving through the checkpoint in both directions,” the SMM said in the report, issued on Jan. 31.
According to the SMM report, on Jan. 30, the SMM was denied the passage of a checkpoint near the settlement of Zaichenko, 93km south of Donetsk.
“Two armed members of the armed formations again denied the SMM passage towards Pikuzy (formerly Kominternove, non-government-controlled, 92km south of Donetsk) and Sakhanka (non-government-controlled, 97km south of Donetsk), citing “ongoing demining activities,” the SMM said.
According to a report of the headquarters of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) in the social network Facebook, through the Verkhnoshyrokivske checkpoint, a passage is made to an area in which, according to Paragraph 5 of the Memorandum on the implementation of the Protocol following the consultations of the Trilateral Contact Group dated Sept. 19, 2014, heavy weapons and military equipment are prohibited.
It is also reported that from the beginning of 2020, SMM representatives at the Verkhnoshyrokivske checkpoint recorded more than a third of all cases of restricting the freedom of movement of SMM patrols.
