Latest from OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine based on information received as of 18:00 (Kyiv time), 29 October 2014

This report is for media and the general public.

The SMM continued to monitor the implementation of the provisions of the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum and the activities of the Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination. In Lviv the SMM observed a lustration march.

The situation in Kharkiv remained calm.

In an area located around 10km north of Shchastya (25km N of Luhansk) the SMM heard artillery shelling from the south-east and the sound of impacts approximately 3-5km north-west from its position. The SMM also heard sporadic anti-aircraft fire outgoing from the area of Shchastya.

On 28 October the SMM spoke with the manager of a supermarket in Luhansk city who said that the head office had had to re-register the supermarket with the so-called “Lugansk People’s Republic” (“LPR”) and showed the SMM the new certificate. The interlocutor stated that currently only two supermarkets are operating in Luhansk city and that the supply chain for the supermarkets has remained the same, with products being brought in from areas controlled by the central Government.

The SMM continued to monitor the activities of the Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination (JCCC) at various locations in the Donetsk region. Accompanied by Ukrainian and Russian members of the JCCC, the SMM visited the JCCC sector and sub-sector command centres in Svitlodars’k (60km SE of Kramatorsk), where it noted that Russian JCCC staff compiled a daily incident log with input from the “LPR” and “Donetsk People’s Republic” (“DPR”). The SMM also visited the JCCC sub-sector in Krasnohorivka (28km W of Donetsk), which was composed of four Ukrainian officers and three Russian officers. They maintained a joint daily log of incidents, signed by both sides when completed. At the JCCC’s sub-sector in Olenivka (25km SW of Donetsk) officers said that they could not initiate daily patrolling and monitoring activities due to the lack of transport. In Shahtyarsk, (69km E of Donetsk) JCCC officers told the SMM that they did not have secure communication lines and so were not in a position to receive confidential information regarding shelling incidents and had to rely on what they themselves saw and heard.

In Mariupol (113km S of Donetsk), the SMM patrolled seven checkpoints (CP) to the north, north-east and east of the city where all CP commanders reported that the situation had been calm and quiet overnight. However, from approximately 11:15hrs to 13:20hrs, the SMM heard repeated series of Grad and artillery shelling in the direction of Talakivka (90km S of Donetsk), which is under the control of Ukrainian forces.

On 29 October the SMM observed a memorial service in Dnipropetrovsk for twenty unidentified soldiers killed in the conflict. Approximately 500 people gathered on a city-centre square to participate in the service led by Orthodox priests of different denominations. The Dnepr-1 volunteer battalion commander and a Maidan representative delivered speeches.

The SMM met the head of the Migration Services Department in Mykolaiv (70km NW of Kherson) who stated that his office is responsible for establishing the identities of internally displaced people (IDPs) without identification documents, though sometimes the procedures are lengthy due to difficulties in co-ordinating with migration offices in Donbas and lack of communication channels with the de facto Crimean authorities.

The SMM visited the local office of the Batkivshchyna political party in Odesa in response to a reported arson attack which had allegedly taken place on the night of 28 October. Party representatives showed the SMM a video recording from CCTV cameras depicting two masked persons breaking a window of the office and throwing some form of incendiary device into the premises. The fire was quickly extinguished by a security guard. The head of the Odesa city party branch said that it was the sixth arson attack this year against different Batkivshchyna offices in Odesa city.

In Chernivtsi and Ivano-Frankivsk the situation remained calm.  

The SMM monitored a lustration march starting near the Lviv Regional Administration building and going through the city centre towards the administrative building of the State-owned Lviv gas supplier, Lvivgazvydobuvannya, organised by the civil initiative “Platform of Free People”. Approximately 100 protesters, mainly young men, gathered demanding the dismissal of the director of Lvivgazvydobuvannya. The protest ended peacefully with no incidents reported. The SMM observed 15 police officers present during the march.

In Kyiv the situation remained calm.