News and press releases

A dozen of high-level representatives of Albanian anti-corruption authorities concluded a four-day study visit to Austrian institutions on 24 March 2017. The activity was organized by the OSCE Presence in Albania as part of a project funded by the Central European Initiative (CEI) with the aim of supporting anti-corruption capacity building and the exchange of good practices...

A workshop on the prevention of early forced marriages, organized by the OSCE Mission to Montenegro, took place on 27 March 2017 in Podgorica...

ST. PETERSBURG, 27 March 2017 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Christine Muttonen (MP, Austria) today held a series of bilateral meetings in St. Petersburg ahead of the Parliamentary Conference on Combating International Terrorism, co-organized by the OSCE PA and Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which she is addressing on Tuesday...

The SMM recorded fewer ceasefire violations in Donetsk region on 25 March compared with 24 March and more ceasefire violations on 26 March compared with 25 March. In Luhansk region the Mission recorded more ceasefire violations (all of which were explosions) on 25 March compared with 24 March, and fewer explosions on 26 March compared with 25 March. The Mission followed up on reports of civilian casualties in Pokrovsk and Avdiivka and observed damage caused by recent shelling to houses in Zaichenko, Dokuchaievsk, Orikhove, Molodizhne and Katerynivka. The Mission monitored the disengagement areas near Stanytsia Luhanska, Zolote and Petrivske, but its access there and elsewhere remained restricted...

VIENNA, 27 March 2017- The Annual Meeting of the OSCE Border Security and Management National Focal Point Network opened at the Hofburg Conference Centre in Vienna today. The two-day meeting is organized by the OSCE Transnational Threats Department in co-operation with the Austrian OSCE Chairmanship...

OSCE and UNECE (the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) jointly organized a meeting of the Working Group on Flood Management and Climate Change Adaptation in the Dniester River Basin on 23 March 2017 in Chisinau, Moldova. The meeting attracted more than 60 participants from the ministries of the environment, water agencies, hydro-meteorological services, research institutions and non-governmental organizations from Moldova and Ukraine...

At 12:45 on 26 March, an SMM patrol of four mission members in two armoured vehicles stopped 500m north-east of government-controlled Orikhove-Donetske (44km north-west of Luhansk). At about 13:10, a couple minutes after launching a mid-range unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the SMM observed another UAV almost directly above the patrol’s position, approaching from the south-south-west at a height of approximately 100 metres. The UAV was slightly larger than the SMM UAV and darker in colour, with a larger wingspan and vertical wingtips. It sounded like it had an electric motor. The SMM immediately began the landing procedure for its own UAV. The other UAV flew over the SMM patrol’s position, circled three times – steadily gaining altitude – and then departed to the west...