Military drills cease within buffer zone in east Ukraine, continue nearby: OSCE
Xinhua, March 5, 2016 Adjust font size:
Live-fire military exercises have ceased within the 30-km buffer zone along the contact line, but they continued just a short distance away, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Friday.
"We still observe most exercises involving dozens of tanks and artillery systems taking place in areas just outside the security zone, in areas not controlled by the government," Alexander Hug, deputy chief of the OSCE special monitoring mission to Ukraine, told a media briefing.
He expressed the hope that the sides of the conflict will intensify their efforts in making the security area along the frontline entirely safe.
On Wednesday, the representatives of the OSCE, Ukraine and Russia in the contact group on Ukraine crisis have signed a document banning military trainings within 30 km from the contact line in Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
Earlier on Friday, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic Alexander Zakharchenko signed the document. However, there was no public response to the document from the leadership of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic. Endit