Situation in Ukraine according to OSCE Special Monitoring Mission

The Special Monitoring Mission continued to observe the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in light of the Minsk agreement on non-use of weapons. OSCE official web-site writes about this. 

A local official from Kehichivka (109km south-east of Kharkiv) told the SMM that, since 5 August, the overall number of IDPs in the district had increased by 65% from 98 to 162, although in this time period 69 IDPs in total returned to their places of origin. All children beyond the age of three were enrolled in pre-school or schools. Russian language classes were available from grade 5.

Ukrainian soldiers based near a destroyed bridge over Siverskyi Donets river (41km northeast of Luhansk), on the road Novoaidar-Slovianoserbsk, reported no incidents.

The SMM visited the city of Makiyivka, just northeast of Donetsk, and the town of Maryinka (38km west of Donetsk), and assessed the situation as calm, with public transportation and shops operating normally. Three civilians in Makiyivka said that they had heard shelling twice on 8 September, and that, in both cases, it had lasted approximately 30 minutes. Two men affiliated with “Donetsk People’s Republic” (“DPR”) fighters, manning a checkpoint on the eastern exit of Makiyivka, corroborated this information. According to local residents of Maryinka, no military activities had been observed in the town since 5 September; but shelling sounds could be still heard, reportedly from the direction of Donetsk airport.

In Dzerzhynsk (55km north of Donetsk) daily life seemed to continue normally. The head of the local police informed the SMM that the situation in the town remained peaceful, but claimed that Ukrainian checkpoints were shelled on a daily basis from Horlivka by the “DPR”. During the meeting, the SMM heard 2 instances of shelling consistent with mortar use. The secretary of the town hall said that all schools were operating, including two schools damaged in July.

The SMM visited five checkpoints on the outskirts of Mariupol. At two of them, in the village of Stary Krym (4km north-west of the city) and on the road N20 (north of the city), Ukrainian soldiers corroborated information, passed earlier to the SMM by local residents, that on 10 September three explosions were heard.

A member of the Jewish community in Mariupol informed the SMM that many Jews had left the city, either for other locations in Ukraine, Israel or Germany, due to security reasons., The director of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk said that around one hundred Jews from Donbas, who had left the area due to security reasons, were currently present in Dnipropetrovsk; many others still remained in Donetsk and Luhansk, and some had gone to Israel. She added that Jews are not discriminated against in Ukraine.

The situation in Kherson was calm.

A border guards officer in Odessa said on 8 September that the border guards had not detected any near-border military patrols or activity in Transdniestria, and no drones had been spotted in the last two weeks. He also said that many IDPs from Donbas resented ‘western Ukrainian’ involvement in the east, which had provoked resentment among some inhabitants of Odessa region.

The situation in Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk was calm.

The City Police in Lviv received four hoax phone calls within 42 minutes informing about bombs in Lviv Airport and three shopping malls.

In Kyiv, the SMM monitored a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Defence with approximately 50-80 participants, mainly women of 30-60 years old. They blocked the road and the police cordoned off the street at several points moving towards the ministry. One of the activists informed the SMM that they were relatives of members of the 12th Territorial Battalion who had been drafted into the Ukrainian Armed Forces several months ago, and had allegedly been poorly commanded; the demonstrators demanded that their relatives return home for a certain time. Several interlocutors stated that their relatives had had to buy protective vests and helmets for themselves before deployment in the east.

The SMM was informed by a member of Mejlis, also the head of the Qurultay revision commission, that, when crossing the administrative boundary line in Armyansk, Russian border guards had not allowed him to leave Crimea. He also said that he had been beaten by Russian border guards, and his shoulder was injured.