OSCE completes verification of weapons withdrawal in Lugansk republic — Kiev speaker

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has completed the verification of weapons pulled back by the Ukrainian military in the Lugansk republic, speaker of Kiev’s military operation Ruslan Tkachuk said on Tuesday.

“The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission has completed the verification of withdrawn weapons in the Luhansk region within the framework of the supplements to the Minsk agreements,” Tkachuk said.

The speaker noted that the ceasefire “had been observed over the past 24 hours in the area of Lugansk and Artyomovsk,” “not a single ceasefire violation had been registered.”

The supplement to the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements of February 12 on withdrawal of tanks, artillery pieces with caliber under 100 mm and mortars with caliber under 120 mm was initialed on September 29 during the talks of the Contact Group in Minsk, Belarus. On September 30, the document was signed by heads of Donetsk and Lugansk republics Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky.
The withdrawal is carried out within 41 days in two stages — tanks, artillery and then mortars. The process is monitored by representatives of the Joint Coordination Center for Ceasefire Monitoring who forward relevant reports to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission.