“It’s important to remind everybody, including those who signed the [Minsk] agreement, apparently that Russia and the separatists are supposed to allow the OSCE monitors full and unfettered access to areas of conflict,” Earnest said on Monday. “That is not something that the Russian-backed separatists had followed through.”
Earnest claimed that the Donbass militia violates the latest Minsk agreement by not allowing OSCE monitors full access to conflict areas.
“We continue to see that while there are some preliminary reports of some heavy weapons being withdrawn, that efforts continue by the separatists and the Russians to prevent OSCE monitors from evaluating where exactly those weapons are being withdrawn to,” he added.
The withdrawal of heavy artillery from the line of contact in Donbas was agreed upon by the warring sides earlier in February during the peace talks in Minsk.
Under the agreement, Kiev and the independence supporters in Eastern Ukraine must withdraw their heavy weapons to a distance of 30 to 85 miles (48km to 136km) from the line of separation.
On Sunday, officials of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk said they completed the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the contact line.
Ukrainian military spokesman Anatoliy Stelmakh said on Sunday that the Kiev government forces would complete the first stage of the heavy weapons withdrawal that day. Stelmakh, however, was unable to confirm what portion of Kiev's heavy weapons had already been withdrawn.
