KIEV (Sputnik) – The head of the European Commission in Ukraine said Wednesday it would be necessary to extend the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine in the country’s east.
“So it's been two years since the mission has started and rethinking of the next elongation, extension to bring more to the population,” Jan Tombinski said at a ceremony of the European Union giving 20 vehicles to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s mission.
Southeastern Ukraine has been suffering from a crisis triggered by a military operation launched by Kiev authorities in April 2014 against local militias. The latter have refused to recognize the pro-Western government in Kiev that came to power in 2014 in what they consider to have been a coup.
The OSCE monitoring mission was deployed to eastern Ukraine to observe the implementation of the peace agreements reached by the two sides in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, with Russian, French and German mediation, first in September 2014 and then in February 2015.
The mission's current mandate expires on March 31.
