OSCE Agrees To Extend Ukraine Mission, Expand Size
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has agreed to extend the mandate of its monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine for another year and increase the number of monitors.
OSCE spokeswoman Mersiha Podzic said member states adopted the decisions on March 12.
She said the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine “can now have a size of up to 1,000 according to the circumstances,” and that its mandate was extended to the March 31, 2016.
More than 6,000 people have been killed in fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces since April.
The OSCE has deployed some 470 unarmed civilian observers in Ukraine, who are verifying the implementation of a peace deal agreed in Minsk on February 12.
A truce in force since February 15 has greatly reduced fighting and led to some heavy weapons being withdrawn by both sides.
Based on reporting by AFP, dpa, and Reuters
The Economist's @NoahSneider on The Battle Of The Memes in the Ukrainian conflict (paywall protected).
h/t: @ChristopherJM
From a new Reuters story quoting purported eyewitnesses to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July:
The accounts from four villagers of Chervonyi Zhovten, which was then, and is now, controlled by the rebels, are significant because they indicate the rocket was in the early stages of its flight path.
That would mean it must have been launched from rebel ground nearby, challenging the suggestion of Moscow and the separatists that the plane was brought down by the Ukrainian military. At the time, the nearest Ukrainian-held area was about 6 km (3.7 miles) away.
And later:
"It took off, at first we thought that a plane was crashing. But it was a rocket," said Kovalenko, 45, who then saw what she thought was smoke coming from the 'Progress' mine in Torez, a town 9.5 km away to the north-west.
Her daughter Anastasia Kovalenko, 14, said she saw a rocket flying over the village, and then a plane in the distance blowing up.
Olga Krasilnikova, 30, also said she saw a rocket, some time between 4 and 5 p.m. "I saw it was flying, flew right over me. From that side," she said, pointing to the outskirts of the village . "I saw smoke in the sky, then I heard an explosion and I saw a huge blue (cloud of) smoke."