Ukraine at OSCE: Russia controlling 400 km of border in Donbas

Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna, made a corresponding statement at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting in Vienna on Thursday, February 27, an Ukrinform own correspondent reports.

"As we have repeatedly stated at previous meetings of the Permanent Council, the Russian side wouldn’t have been able to maintain such a high level of violence along the contact line if it hadn’t had complete control over the 400km section of the border," the Ukrainian diplomat said, informing of the recent gross ceasefire violations by the Russian armed forces in eastern Ukraine.

Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk mentioned relevant facts established by the OSCE SMM to Ukraine: armored combat vehicles and trucks heading west and east from the border crossing near Novoazovsk; tented trucks and fuel tanks standing in line to leave Ukraine at the border crossing near Uspenka; train with empty wagons standing at the station in the village of Lysyche, about 6 km of the international border; train and forty wagons at the Chervona Mohyla railway station near Voznesenivka heading east towards the border; fresh traces of transport on a snow-covered asphalt road near the village of Kuznetsy heading to the border with the Russian Federation, in the area lacking border crossing points.

"These are just some of the facts gathered and established by the SMM over the past two weeks, which testify to the scale of Russia's illegal crossing of the border with Ukraine," the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna said.

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