OSCE Says Unable to Fully Control Heavy Artillery Withdrawal in Donbas

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (SMM) is unable to fully control heavy weaponry withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, as sides of the conflict do not provide monitors with the necessary information, mission’s spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said Monday.

In some cases, the monitors were not allowed to visit places of new weaponry dislocation, Bociurkiw told Russian daily Kommersant.

The SMM urges the sides of the Ukrainian conflict to provide monitors with the information on numbers and dislocation of heavy artillery in the conflict zone. The mission also needs data on weaponry withdrawal routes and dislocation areas, Bociurkiw said.

The withdrawal of heavy artillery from the line of contact in war-torn Donbas was agreed upon by the warring sides earlier in February during peace talks in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

Under the agreement reached in Minsk, Kiev and independence supporters must withdraw their heavy artillery to a distance of 30-85 miles from the line separating the government forces and the eastern Ukrainian militia.

On Sunday, the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR and LPR) officials said they completed the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the contact line.

On the same day, Ukrainian military spokesman Anatoliy Stelmakh said that Kiev forces would complete the first stage of its heavy weaponry withdrawal on Sunday. Stelmakh, however, was unable to confirm what portion of Kiev's heavy weapons had already been withdrawn.