RIA Novosti: Russian envoy berates OSCE for doing “nothing” about Ukrainian troop movement

File Photo of OSCE Banners

(RIA Novosti – Vienna, November 10, 2014) There is no information on the movement of the armed forces of Ukraine in the conflict zone in the east of the country not only in the openly published but also in the full reports of the OSCE monitoring mission, to which Russia has drawn the organization’s attention specially, Andrey Kelin, Russia’s permanent representative to the OSCE, has told RIA Novosti.

“The philosophy is that these ones are unlawful while the others are lawful so they can do what they want. There has been nothing in the reports about the movement of hardware from the other side (controlled by Kiev – Ed.),” Kelin told RIA Novosti.

He said that “this is not normal, it reflects their general philosophy and approach, which is that all that is being done on the territory of the DNR and LNR [self-proclaimed “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk], as the Westerners see it, is unlawful; whereas on the other side (on the territories controlled by Kiev – Ed.) all movements are lawful”.

The Russian delegation regularly draws the OSCE staff’s attention to this. “We are always talking about the shortcomings (in the observers’ reports – Ed.). For example, the shelling carried out by the Ukrainian forces is reflected in far fewer reports than the shelling carried out by the [rebel] militias,” Kelin said.

 

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