REUTERS
Militants from the Luhansk People’s Republic organization have confirmed that observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine are prohibited from visiting areas near Ukraine’s border with Russia, Radio Liberty reported on Tuesday.
The observers talked with the commander of the border unit in the town of Krasnodon in Luhansk region, who said that he had an order from the high command not to let the OSCE mission visit the border zone without the written permission of the LPR organization.
However, the interlocutor said that there might be some other temporary agreements.
According to the OSCE mission, on May 13 the same prohibition was declared by the ataman of the Cossacks in Sverdlovsk. He said that an area with a width of 1-2 km along the captured section of the Ukrainian-Russian border would be closed to the OSCE.
The Minsk agreements on the settlement of the situation in the Donbas provide for the free access of OSCE observers to all parts of Ukraine. Russia, however, does not allow them to visit the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea.
In addition, the OSCE observers have constantly complained that both sides set various restrictions on their work in the Donbas conflict zone.