Hug: OSCE has seen soldiers wearing Russian insignias in the Donbas Thursday, October 20, 2016 3:28:00 PM

The Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE SMM, Alexander Hug, said that monitors continue to face difficult circumstances in eastern Ukraine.

During an interview with Libération, Hug said that the soldiers “in the field say that we cannot be let through for the sake of our own security as the area has landmines”.

“It is also a violation of the agreements. These restrictions are always aimed at preventing us from seeing what they do not want us to see,” Hug continued.

He called the situation in the Donbas “extremely volatile and unpredictable”. According to him, “there are many areas where the positions of the warring sides are very close to each other, perhaps even as close as fifty meters”.

“We have seen combatants wearing the insignia of the Russian Federation. We interviewed the prisoners and they claimed that they were members of the regular forces of the Russian Federation... We have recorded all of this in our reports,” Hug said.

However, he added that he “cannot draw any conclusions from this,” and the OSCE only “records the facts”.

Russia has repeatedly stated that it is not involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

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