What are military facility visits?

The Organization for Security and Co-operation is composed of 57 participating States from Europe, Central Asia, and North America. The Organization seeks to build trust with openness and transparency in our security dialogue in Europe.

Vienna document visits take place frequently under the auspices of the OSCE. All OSCE participating States have agreed to a number of confidence and security-building measures. All of these measures are laid down in formal documents, decisions and other agreements. One of the most important of these is the Vienna Document, which was last updated and adopted in 2011.

The Vienna Document requires participating States for instance to:

• provide each other with information about their military forces annually, including about manpower and major conventional weapon- and equipment systems, as well as deployment plans and military budgets.
• notify each other ahead of time about major military activities such as exercises.
• accept up to three inspections of their military sites per year. Invite other States to observe certain military activities and/or demonstration of new types of major weapons and equipment systems. It also encourages States to permit journalists from all participating States to cover the activities.
• to consult and co-operate in case of unusual military activity or increasing tensions. The Vienna Document encourages participating States, for example, to voluntarily host military visits to dispel concerns.

The mechanism which describes the current visit to Ukraine is under Chapter III of the Vienna Document. Participants are unarmed, and their aim is to dispel concerns about military activities. They report back to OSCE participating States.

The Vienna Document was first adopted in 1990. The politically-binding agreement provides for the exchange and verification of information about armed forces and military activities and other confidence and security building measures. The Vienna Document was updated in 1992, 1994, 1999 and 2011 to account for the changing needs of OSCE participating States.