Yesterday, the Head of OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, Ambassador 

Yesterday, the Head of OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, Ambassador Ertugrul Apakan, visited Administration of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.

During the meeting, he was informed on situation with maintenance of border security at the Ukrainian-Russian and Ukrainian-Moldovan state border sectors by the Director of International and Law Directorate, Lieutenant General Oleksandr Melnykov. In the course of discussion, border guards provide the information on illegal acts of Russian Federation aiming at conflict escalation at Ukrainian eastern regions, inactivity of border guards of the adjacent state regarding countering illegal transportation of armed men, vehicles and weapon across the state border.

Within the Ukrainian President’s Plan on peaceful settlement of a situation at the eastern regions of Ukraine, the parties have discussed the way of cooperation between Ukraine and OSCE Mission on certain aspects of work.

Particularly, the discussion touched upon the possibility of OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in participating in the situation monitoring jointly with the units of the State Border Guard Service, National Guard and Armed Forces within 10 km (buffer) area along the state border. In addition, the main stress here was made by Mission concerning the possibility of such actions after determining the status of border areas and taking measures by Russian Federation aiming at stabilizing the situation at the border.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the parties assigned the contact persons for maintaining the further coordination and communication.