Russia Blocking OSCE Monitoring Of Its Border With Ukraine

The European security watchdog OSCE has complained that Russia is resisting its efforts at international monitoring of its border with Ukraine. The watchdog maintains a watch on the progress of ceasefire between government forces and pro-Russian rebels since September.

The allegation was also raised by the United States. The monitoring mission basically looks at any alleged supplies by Russia to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow has been on a denial mode that it supports separatists in the conflict region where more than 3,700 people have been killed after the fighting erupted in April.

US Blames Russia

Senior U.S. official Jennifer Bosworth, speaking at a meeting of the OSCE, accused Russia of placing "undue restrictions" on its 16 OSCE observers. The three-month mandate of the observers was to end in late October, reports Daily Star.

The U.S official said, "We have concerns that the mission will be unable to monitor Russia's involvement in facilitating the flow of illegal arms, funding, and personnel to support the separatists." Bosworth called Russia's action "deeply regrettable" in refusing to expand the OSCE's monitoring work on sensitive border checkpoints. As a result, "We are constrained to have a limited-scope mission, covering just two border checkpoints which account for hardly one kilometre in the 2,300 kilometre border," Bosworth said.

Meanwhile, the OSCE announced extension of the mandate of its observer mission at the Russian checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk until Nov 23. In Ukraine, OSCE is operating a monitoring mission with a team of 250 international observers who have to report on the situation on the ground. The mission has a mandate until March 2015.

Russia's Reservations

Ria Novosti reports that Russia had given nod to partial monitoring of the border in July at Gukovo and Donetsk checkpoints. This is to ensure transparency in the border traffic between Russia and self-proclaimed regions in eastern Ukraine. That decision has already been adopted unanimously by 57 OSCE member-states. But Russia made it clear that it is against expanding the OSCE mandate in other border areas as Russia is already maintaining strict control over other checkpoints.

The OSCE Observer Mission at Gukovo and Donetsk checkpoints are headquartered in the Russian town of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky with 16 civilian monitors reporting on the situation at checkpoints and on movements across the border.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has set up a monitoring mission in Ukraine in March, after a request from Ukraine. The monitors from OSCE are expected to contribute to decreasing tensions and stabilise peace in the region by giving updated information on the security situation.