Updated 3:29 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, September 9 (RIA Novosti) – Moscow hopes that within the next few days the ceasefire in Ukraine will be consolidated, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.
“In speaking of the assessments of how the ceasefire is being observed, we naturally rely on the opinions of the OSCE observers. They aren’t panicking. The do acknowledge that there are some isolated incidents from both sides. However, one senior observer said in an interview that unfortunately this is the usual case at the beginning period of a setting up a ceasefire and bringing the agreement of a ceasefire to life. So, we hope that in the next few days this regime will be consolidated,” Lavrov said during a joint press conference with Malian Foreign Minister Tieman Coulibaly.
Representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agreed to a ceasefire between Kiev and Ukrainian independence supporters during the September meeting of the Contact Group in Minsk.
The ceasefire came into force at 15:00 GMT the same day.
On Sunday, both the Ukrainian military and the militia accused each other of violating the ceasefire.
On Monday, OSCE monitors working in Ukraine released a report on a series of shootings that were recorded in different areas of the Donbas (Ukraine’s southeastern regions) over the weekend. OSCE representative Kai Vittrup noted that the ceasefire violations should not affect the truce.
The chairman of the OSCE Permanent Council, Thomas Greminger, said Monday that the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine has been "as a whole" observed.
