Donetsk, July 20, the Donetsk News Agency
The Ministry of Defense of the DPR expressed its failure to communicate the goal of the OSCE Mission presence in the areas of DPR and LPR military equipment withdrawal, if the Mission is not able to confirm the fact, Deputy Commander of Corps of the MoD DPR Eduard Basurin remarked.
“A question arises, why then the representatives of the organization arrived to our positions in the given period? Did they arrive in order to enjoy the beauty of the armoured vehicles moving across the rough terrain?”— he said in his commentary to the DNA.
Be reminded that the Deputy Chief of the Mission Alexander Hug told the RIA Novosti news agency that the OSCE yesterday “did not observe the withdrawal, they observed movement of tanks and other vehicles on the side of the DPR and LPR”. “This is important, as we do not know, where the armaments ended up as a result”, — Hug remarked.
According to Basurin, Donetsk and Lugansk are no less then the international mediators interested in symmetrical withdrawal from the disengagement line of Ukrainian armoured vehicles as well. “Nevertheless, the statement that “we can observe the movement of the DPR and LPR vehicles away from the contact line, but cannot confirm the withdrawal” sounds odd at the least”, — Basurin added.
According to him, in order to confirm the withdrawal one should simply register the absence of the equipment “on the 3 km-wide strip near the contact line”.
“This was what the authorities of the republics stated, and we stick to our decision in presence of the OSCE observers, — Deputy Commander of Corps explained. – We would like the SSM to be as scrupulous in its assessment of the situation on the other side of the front, where they do nothing to demilitarize the disengagement line”.
Earlier, on July 18, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics announced the start of withdrawal of tanks and armoured vehicles of caliber up to 100 mm, to the distance of 3 km from the contact line. The DPR equipment will only remain for the time being in the positions to the north of Donetsk and Debaltsevo – in the most tense spots of the disengagement line. The People’s Militia plans to complete the withdrawal on July 21, and the LPR has already withdrawn the armoured vehicles.
The withdrawal of the relevant equipment had been discussed in Minsk for a long time, although the agreement with Kiev failed, thus, the DPR and LPR decided to act unilaterally in the interests of the success of peace settlement.
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