Contents tagged with OSCE

  • Russia has started to form a new military division near the border with Ukraine

    The Russian Federation has violated the provisions of the Vienna Document-2011 on confidence and security building measures by starting to form a new motorized rifle division near the border with Ukraine, without informing the OSCE, according to the press service of the General Staff of Ukraine.

    On January 16th-19th, Ukraine, together with Canada and Denmark, conducted an inspection in the Rostov region of the Russian Federation to ensure that Russia complies with the commitments to openness …

  • Ukrainian Foreign Minister and OSCE head discuss expanding Special Monitoring Mission in the Donbas

    The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin, and the Acting Chairman of the OSCE, the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Integration, Sebastian Kurz, discussed the strengthening of the Special Monitoring Mission of the OSCE in the Donbas.

    “We talked about the importance of strengthening the mission both in terms of its personnel and in a technical sense,” Klimkin stated at a joint press conference with Kurz in Kyiv. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister also noted that after the …

  • Ukrainian representative: There are Russian FSB and GRU officers in the OSCE Mission

    The Ukrainian representative to the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the ceasefire (JCCC), General Borys Kremenetsky, is certain that the Russian officers assigned to the OSCE mission are career officers of the Russian Special Services, as stated in an interview with Ukrayinska Pravda.

    The Major-General admitted that the episode where Ukrainian servicemen did not allow the OSCE patrol to withdraw weapon storage sites until they were sure that there were no Russians involved is a …

  • German security agency found Russian link to cyber-attack against OSCE

    A Russian trace in December’s cyber-attack against the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was discovered by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Following the attack, OSCE representatives admitted that it is possible for hackers to have gained access to the organization’s secret documents.

    Experts hired by the OSCE blamed the attack on the hacker groups ART 28 and ART 29. ART 28 is also known as Fancy Bear and the ART 29 as Cozy Bear. It is …

  • The new head of the OSCE is dissatisfied with the situation in eastern Ukraine

    The Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Sebastian Kurtz, during his visit to the Donbas, said that the Organization is not satisfied with the current situation in eastern Ukraine, where the armed conflict continues after more than two years.

    He stressed that the OSCE is committed, "to step up the efforts to improve the situation," and in order to do so, Austria will allocate an additional 2 million euro for humanitarian aid to the residents of the Donetsk and …

  • As head of the OSCE, Austria will seek to ease the sanctions against Russia

    Austria intends to take advantage of the chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in order to ease the European Union’s sanctions against Russia. "We must restore trust in Europe, and transform the sanctions from a system of punishment to a system of incentives," the Foreign Minister of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, said in an interview with Der Spiegel, excerpts of which were published on the website of the edition on Friday, December 30th.

    Since the beginning …

  • French media: OSCE accused Russia of cyber-attacks on the servers of the organization's headquarters

    The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe stated that its headquarters in Vienna was subjected to a massive hacker attack. Western security services suspect that the attacks were organized by Moscow, and that Angela Merkel may be the attackers’ main target, Le Monde reported.

    The OSCE officially refuses to make any assumptions about who might be behind the Internet pirates that took advantage of vulnerabilities in the operating systems used by employees of the organization. …

  • OSCE Secretary General declared a split in the organization because of disagreements over Ukraine

    The Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Lamberto Zannier, reported a split among the organization’s 57 member countries. This statement was released on Friday, December 9th, at the meeting of OSCE foreign ministers in Hamburg. Zannier stressed that the split was caused primarily by disagreements over the conflict in Ukraine, but was not limited to that.

    The OSCE Secretary General also stated that organization observers encounter obstacles in …

  • Klimkin: Russia wants to legalize its control over the Donbas

    The number of victims of Russia’s military aggression in the Donbas has reached 10,000 while Moscow uses the war as a mechanism to put pressure on Europe, as was stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pavlo Klimkin, speaking at the OSCE Ministerial Meeting, a correspondent from Evropeyskaya Pravda reported from Hamburg.

    "The number of victims of the Russian war against Ukraine has increased to 10,000 people. Hundreds remain illegally imprisoned in the occupied territories in the Crimea. …

  • Mogherini: Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is a flagrant violation of the OSCE principles

    The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, once again stressed that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is a violation of the OSCE principles and international law, as she stated during the 23rd meeting of Ministers of the OSCE countries in Hamburg.

    "Russia’s illegal annexation of the Crimea and actions intended to destabilize eastern Ukraine are flagrant violations of OSCE principles and international law," Mogherini noted.

    She also said that the …