President: If one-month ceasefire is agreed, monitoring mechanisms must be established quickly
If a decision is made to cease fire for a month, the issue of monitoring must be resolved quickly.
This was stated by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky during a conversation with journalists, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
“If there is a decision for a month, that is, in a big sense, there will be no hot war this month, there will be 100% violations, not even 90%. But in the general sense of the war and the scope of the war that exists now, of course, there will be no war. And everyone understands that we need to resolve the issue of monitoring very quickly. Number one is the ceasefire. And the second issue is to see what will happen to the whole plot of the end of the war. These two issues are definitely the most urgent,” Zelensky emphasized.
According to him, there is currently no clear definition of how such monitoring will take place.
“I think that in any case, intelligence, satellite, technical data - America and Europe will do all this. I am absolutely sure of that,” the President emphasized.
However, as the Head of State emphasized, the most difficult task will be to define the demarcation line.
As he reminded, after reaching certain agreements within the Minsk ceasefire agreements in 2014, there should be a buffer zone along the demarcation line. However, no one, including the OSCE, could fully monitor the ceasefire there due to numerous violations.
“This is a very complicated issue. I don't think there are very many activists from partner countries who would think about a suitable mission in this sense of the word. Although changes in terms of control have occurred due to the technological nature of war. I believe that, in principle, drones can technically control all this. The use of precision drones, drops, guided bombs, airplanes, helicopters, missile strikes - all of this will be precisely controlled, and I am sure that this is what will decrease, first of all. No one will violate on purpose to be recorded. But with some weapons, such as small arms, artillery or mortars, which are hidden in plantations, forests, it will be more difficult,” Zelensky emphasized.
As Ukrinform reported, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that the “ceasefire” proposed by the Kremlin leader from May 7 to 9 was not enough to reach agreements on the next steps to end the war.