News and press releases

KYIV, 8 March 2019 – Yesterday, the Trilateral Contact Group recommitted to the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. Ertugrul Apakan, Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, and Martin Sajdik, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and to the Trilateral Contact Group, welcomed the recommitment by issuing the following statement:...

“Today, 8 March 2019, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) joins people around the world in celebrating International Women’s Day. We take this opportunity to honour the achievements of women and to highlight this year’s theme urging all of us to ‘think equal, build smart and innovate for change’...

NEW YORK, United States, 7 March 2019 – Briefing the United Nations Security Council on the priorities of the 2019 Slovak OSCE Chairmanship in New York today, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Slovakia’s Minister for Foreign and European Affairs, Miroslav Lajčák reconfirmed the OSCE’s commitment to supporting the implementation of the UN global mandate at the regional level.

Compared with the previous reporting period, the SMM recorded more ceasefire violations in Donetsk region and fewer in Luhansk region. A car with armed men inside blocked the SMM’s passage near Sakhanka. An SMM mid-range unmanned aerial vehicle spotted anti-tank mines on the northern edge of Marinka. The Mission monitored adherence to the ceasefire to enable repairs to essential civilian infrastructure in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Restrictions of the Mission’s access continued in all three disengagement area and its access was also restricted at a checkpoint near non-government-controlled Mykolaivka...

While noting that Armenia’s 9 December 2018 early parliamentary elections enjoyed broad public trust and were held with respect for fundamental freedoms, the  final report  issued by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) recommends that the authorities, political

A two-day train-the-trainer course on countering terrorist financing was organized in Vienna for Kazakh participants on 6 and 7 March 2019 by the OSCE’s Transnational Threats Department, in co-operation with the OSCE Programme Office in Astana and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's Global Programme against Money Laundering (UNODC/GPML), and supported by the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG)...

A high-level OSCE-supported forum aimed at promoting the political rights of women in Kyrgyzstan, in particular at pushing forward the draft bill on establishing a 30 per cent gender quota in the nearly 500 local councils in Kyrgyzstan, was held on 6 March in Bishkek...