On December 6, the day after the parties notified the OSCE Mission of the completion of all activities to eliminate violations on the previously disengaged site No. 3 in the Petrovskoye area, stipulated by the scheduled plan, the SMM was to check this fact.
According to the OSCE reports of December 9 and 10, the activities, which were supposed to be completed on December 4 under the approved scheduled plan, are still being continued by the Ukrainian party. It is also reported that to verify the situation in certain locations of the mission site “additional clarifications are needed.”
In particular, the report of December 10 said that the four trenches previously found in the area had only been partially filled up. In addition, we recall that, according to the SMM, more than 400 anti-tank minefields of the AFU are still registered in the disengagement area.
Thus, it becomes obvious that the media statements by official representatives, as well as the notification of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine sent to the OSCE Mission on the completion of all activities on the site are another fake.
The Ukrainian party has failed to fulfill its obligations and has only partially implemented the measures envisaged by the scheduled plan to eliminate violations on the previously disengaged site within the time period agreed by the Contact Group, which is a violation of paragraph 4 of the Framework decision, according to which the disengagement of forces and hardware and all related activities are to be carried out identically, simultaneous and should not exceed 30 days.
The precedent the Ukrainian party has set by breaking the deadlines for the implementation of the scheduled plan blocks new agreements on the disengagement of forces and hardware, which have been instructed by the Normandy Four for further work at the Minsk negotiation platform.
As will be recalled, as of December 5, all forces and hardware of the DPR People’s Militia were withdrawn from disengagement site No. 3, appropriate mine-clearance activities were carried out, including marking the areas where mine clearance is complicated, and all fortifications and other military facilities were dismantled.