"Where the OSCE does not pass, the enemy will not pass there"

Will the attack against international observers in the Donbass be the reason for the deployment of a police mission

On March 3 of this year, “New” published a great interview with Alexander Khug, the first deputy head of the special monitoring mission (SMM) of the OSCE in Ukraine. The interview was held against the backdrop of the frequent emergency and threats to the mission members in the Donbass. In operational reports, such situations were described impassively.

For example: Patrol SMM intended to launch a drone for monitoring the situation at the Donetsk filter station, which the day before fell under fire. But four men in camouflage approached the patrol, shouted in Russian “Stop!”, Grasped the drone lying on the ground, took a position for shooting from the knee and sent machine guns to observers. Representatives of the SMM loudly declared Russian and English that they were OSCE employees. In response, the man in camouflage gave the line from the machine gun, the bullets lay about five meters from the car. And they left, taking with them “prey” - a drone.

Here is another example. Two men with AK-47 assault rifles, “dressed in camouflage of a military type, characteristic of members of the“ DPR ”, entered into a discussion with a Pikuzi village patrol in the center of the village of Pikuzi, in a territory temporarily uncontrolled Ukraine. One of the "DPR" -ses shot into the air. In the text of the report, a diplomatic explanation of this act was striking: “Apparently, wanting to show that its firearms are in working condition.” Observers, however, made the conclusion more realistic and quickly left ...

In an interview with me, Mr. Hug then said that the main thing of obstacles to observers in the Donbass is expressed in the restriction of freedom of movement from the so -called “DPR” and “LPR”.

“... Sometimes we were given access, but the next day there was no longer because, say, the day of the week, mood or weather,”-the deputy head of the special monitoring mission allowed only ironic hints. There were no casualties among his colleagues ...

To my question about the prospects of the appearance of a police officer in the Donbass, that is, the armed, the OSCE mission, Alexander Khug, reacted streamlined: such decisions are made by the constant advice of the OSCE by consensus of all 57 participants. So far, according to him, there were no specific sentences.

On Sunday, April 23, at 11.17, the OSCE car, having hooked the road to the side of the road, exploded on an anti -tank mine near the village of Sushib, Slavyanoserverbsky district, which is near Lugansk, in the territory controlled by the LPR militants.

In the evening of the same day, Alexander Hug spent a briefing. “The patrol consisted of two armored cars, three members of the patrol in each car. As a result of damage to the first car, two mission members came to the doctors. In addition, one member of the patrol, a US citizen, died. (The deceased, Joseph Stone, was a medical worker, a paramedic, O. M. ) three members of the patrol who were in another car, did not suffer and returned to the mission base. Two members of the patrol, citizens of Germany and the Czech Republic, are now on a medical examination in Lugansk, ”Hug said. (Open sources mention the German citizen Iva Gnelin, who received a contusion as a result of the explosion of the mine. The surname of the third injured member of the patrol is not named, - O. M. )

“Min there (near the village of Prisyb, - O. M. ) should not be at all,” continued Alexander Khug. “The trilateral contact group and other signatures of the Memorandum to the Minsk agreements of September 19, 2014 banned the installation of mine-explosive barriers and provided for the obligations to remove such barriers established earlier.”

In the operational report of the OSCE SMM on this subject, it is clarified: “... the car was moving along the road of secondary significance, which the SMM employees have already used. There were no signs warning of mine danger along the road. ”

The Interfax-Ukraine agency published a statement by the head of the SMM in the Donbass, Apakan Ambassador. He went to the place of the tragedy in order to hold the guilty of the guilty for the establishment of mines on the path of the Patrol SMM and claimed: "We are still committed to the implementation of our mandate and the assistance of ensuring peace for the people of Ukraine."

The body of the deceased observer of the SMM, as reported on the air of the Ukrainian television channel “112” Dmitry Strutinsky, the press officer of the Ukrainian side of the joint center for control and coordination (SCCC), promptly evacuated to Ukraine controlled-in the direction of Pervomaisk-young-paste, established the regime of silence and Dali “corridor”.

According to Strutinsky, the investigation of the incident is the competence of the OSCE mission. Whether the Ukrainian side will be able to carry out investigative actions is still incomprehensible. Although a message has already appeared on the website of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine: on the fact of a crime qualified as a terrorist attack, the SBU began criminal proceedings, information about it has been entered into a single register of pre -trial investigations. The course of the investigation is under the control of the prosecutor of the Luhansk region, in the city of Severodonetsk, which is controlled by Ukraine, where the regional prosecutor's office is now located.

The first informal reaction of the militants was like the one that received publicity in July 2014, after the catastrophe of the Boeing of the Malaysian “Boeing” in the sky above the Donbass-“Poultry Popard”, they say. “I'm already in place. One “two hundred”, one “three hundredth”, this is our territory, it is ruffled, ”an eyewitness to someone on the video, which was found on the network, reports on the network from the Ukrainian edition Censor.Net

Officially, the press service of the so-called “People’s Police of the LPR” accused the victims themselves: the observers' car “deviated from the main route and moved along secondary roads, which is prohibited by the mandate of the OSCE SMM. We repeatedly paid attention to the OSCE SMM to comply with the necessary safety measures when monitoring routes. ”

The theme in the "LPR" was developed in a conspiracytic manner. The incident is a provocation of the Duhing and reconnaissance group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the goal is the rapprochement of Petro Poroshenko with the new American administration.

As you know, the President of Ukraine not only called for a thorough investigation of the attack against international observers, but also talked by telephone with US Secretary of State Tilerson: he expressed condolences about the death of a US citizen, a member of the OSCE Patrol, proposed to activate negotiations on the placement of the International Peace of Peacemaker contingent under the auspices of the UN.

Further, a certain Rodion Miroshnik, the official representative of the LPR in the political group in negotiations in Minsk, in the past, was advanced in the reasoning - PRA Yanukovych. According to Miroshnik, “this provocation clearly fits into the long -standing desire of Kyiv to introduce an armed international mission, which representatives of the“ LPR ”and“ DPR ”clearly opposed.

But the former commander of the Vostok brigade Alexander Khodakovsky, now just an internal critic of the “DPR authorities”, on his Facebook page regarding the incident in the “Bratsk LPR” responded without unnecessary polites: “Where the OSCE does not pass, the enemy will not pass there. Recently, I had a publication in which I told how we did not allow the UN in the industrial zone (Avdeevsky industrial zone, O. M. ) to the front line. Now all international observers understand that everything that we do is for their own good. No need to move unauthorized routes ... "

When this note was prepared for printing, it became known: the convocation of an extraordinary meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on the fact of an emergency is not planned, but the first deputy head of the SMM Alexander Khug-in the video of the video service from Kyiv took part in the information briefing for the delegations of the OSCE participating. The topic of significant strengthening of the international presence in the Donbass, in particular, the deployment of the OSCE armed police mission in the Donbass comes to the fore.

Kyiv