Ukraine crisis: Both sides accused of concealing weapons from inspectors and discreetly shifting them to the front line in violation of ceasefire
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Version 0 of 1. The international watchdog monitoring the conflict in eastern Ukraine is increasingly powerless to act in the face of escalating hostilities as its officials become the targets of death threats, violent attacks and a systematic campaign of intimidation, its deputy chief has revealed. Both Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian rebels are reportedly continuing to conceal heavy artillery, missile systems and tanks from inspectors while discreetly shifting weapons to the front line, violating the ceasefire deal agreed in February. Meanwhile, rebel forces are accused of imposing crippling restrictions on the movement of monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and blocking access to holding areas where heavy weapons are supposed to have been mothballed under the Minsk peace accord. In outspoken press conferences in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Alexander Hug, second-in-command of the OSCE’s Ukraine mission, vented his frustration at the rapidly disintegrating truce. His blunt comments highlighted the organisation’s increasing impotence in the region. A soldier gets a trim at a position held by Ukrainian forces at the destroyed Butovka mine near Donetsk airport “I know where my monitors are, but I do not know where the DPR and Ukrainian forces have put their tanks or heavy weapons,” Mr Hug said at the OSCE’s hotel in Donetsk on Wednesday evening. “As long as I don’t know, I can’t verify that they have done what they have promised. The sides continue to make the verification of the withdrawal of heavy weapons difficult.” Last week, his team visited nine supposed holding areas for Ukrainian heavy artillery. “Two were abandoned, five with weapons missing,” he said. “We also revisited 18 DPR weapon-holding areas; five had weapons missing. In one, the DPR members told us that 11 Grad [missile] systems had been moved to Donetsk city. We also continue to observe all along the contact line large-calibre weapons, all in violation of the Minsk agreement.” A recent rise in attacks has fuelled fears that full-scale conflict may soon resume, with flagrant violations of the ceasefire on both sides. Mr Hug said his team of monitors had also been hit by “a sharp increase of aggression” – sometimes verbal, on other occasions “organised and violent”. Last week, he said, 10 “intoxicated” men clad in camouflage uniform threatened OSCE staff at their hotel in Mariupol. On Sunday, he claimed, a rebel soldier threw an unexploded artillery shell into an OSCE vehicle in Olenovka, near Donetsk. “And just this morning, in Bezimenne down on the Azov Sea, a DPR member threatened to kill our observers should they come next time to the checkpoint.” Earlier this month, four armoured vehicles belonging to the OSCE were torched in an arson attack in central Donetsk. In July, angry locals descended on the same building and sprayed OSCE jeeps with graffiti. Mr Hug branded the incident an act of “vandalism”, orchestrated by the local authorities. Meanwhile, an OSCE aerial surveillance drone has suffered military grade radio jamming along its flight path. In rebel-held Ukraine, civilian support for the OSCE is at its lowest ebb. Some accuse it of lying and there are frustrations when monitors refuse to conclude which side was responsible for attacks. Others blame the unarmed task force for violence, which regularly escalates after its monitors leave a frontline area. One pensioner in Donetsk told The Independent: “Our soldiers attacked the monitors? Good for them. The sooner the OSCE leaves, the better.” Near the front line at Gorlovka, Mr Hug noted that the industrial, Soviet-era town had been the scene of recent “carnage” and revealed that OSCE staff had been forced to seek a police escort. “I am a civilian and I should be able to come here without any escort,” he added. |