Madam Chairperson,

Ukraine joins other delegations in welcoming Ambassador György Varga back to the Permanent Council.

I would like to begin with expressing our strong support to the Mission’s activities. Despite being established before the Minsk Agreements had been signed, the Mission’s monitoring is contributing to wider OSCE’s efforts aimed at providing transparency along the segment of the border between Ukraine and the Russian Federation which is temporarily not under control by the Government of Ukraine.

Ukraine reiterates that transparency at the Russian-Ukrainian border is an integral part of peaceful resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict. Without withdrawal of Russian occupation forces and illegal armed formations from the sovereign territory of Ukraine followed by reinstating of full control over the Ukrainian-Russian border by the Government of Ukraine, we should hardly expect any progress in politico-diplomatic efforts to solve this conflict.

In this regard we deeply regret that the Russian Federation recently did not join consensus of the participating States to prolong the Border Observer Mission’s mandate for another 4 months. I think this situation is clear for everyone. Russia as a party to the conflict, which continues fueling it for the reasons of achieving particular geopolitical goals, is simply not interested in comprehensive and unbiased monitoring on the border and areas adjacent to it, because relevant reporting would only provide additional facts about Russian military presence in Donbas.

Despite mentioned conditions of restrictions and impediments, the Mission continues providing important statistics on movements across the segment of the Russian-Ukrainian state border currently solely controlled by Russia on both sides.

As mentioned in Chief Observer’s report, a total of 150 crossings by people in military-style outfits were observed during the reporting period. At the same time, since the deployment of the Mission in 2014, it has observed a total of 39041 people of this category. The Observer Mission also continues to note that some of them wear badges or emblems of so called “DPR”, “LPR” and/or “Novorossiya”. Taking into account that observers conduct monitoring at only 2 out of 11 border crossing points on this segment of the border, it looks like majority of mercenaries, illegally sent by Russia to Ukraine, managed to visit their homes in Russia at least once during this period, travelling through these two specific BCPs.

The BOM regularly observes a significant number of different types of vehicles (cars, buses, trucks, and ambulances, etc.) bearing “LPR”, and on some rare occasions “DPR” plates, crossing the border in both directions and at both BCPs. In this regard question that has to be answered by Russia is how this corresponds with Russia’s international commitments on border security and management including those, envisaged by the OSCE Border Security and Management Concept, adopted by providing support of all participating States to the Ministerial Council Decision N2/05 in Ljubljana?

How Russia implements its commitments on enhancing the security of travel documents, reducing the threat of terrorism, transnational organized crime, illegal migration and finally smuggling and trafficking in weapons, drugs and human beings?

The answer is obvious. The Russian Federation uses its sole control over the both sides of the border to continue unimpeded supplies of weapons, military equipment, ammunition, regular troops and mercenaries to the temporarily occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Instead of enhancing security on the border Russia contributes to insecurity and makes a practical use of it.

The Border Observer Mission reports on thousands of trucks, cargo minivans and trains, which illegally cross the border of sovereign territory of Ukraine on a daily basis. If this Mission due to mentioned reasons has the only opportunity to hear the sounds of trains, the SMM’s reports provide a clear picture of multi-wagon locomotives, regularly travelling in both directions across the border. Numerous means of transport cross the border at places where there are no border crossing facilities at all. So it is not surprising that during 2020-2021 only the SMM spotted a number of Russian military and military-type equipment at the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Among them, for instance, electronic warfare systems R-330Zh «Zhitel», RB-636 «Svet-KU», RB-341V «Leer-3», 51U6 «Kasta-2E1», and R-934B «Sinitsa», as well as 122 mm multiple launch rocket systems «Grad» on Kamaz 5350 chassis, surface-to-air air defence missile systems 9K33 «Osa» and 9K31 «Strela-1», 122mm self-propelled howitzers 2S1 «Gvozdika» and 122mm towed howitzers D-30A «Lyagushka», armored utility vehicles UAZ 23632-148 «Esaul», UAV «Navodchik-2» and others.

At the same time the Russian Federation continues keeping silence when being asked by participating States to explain how the sophisticated weapons and military equipment, used exclusively by the Russian Armed Forces or produced in Russia, made its way to Ukraine.

To have a better look at this critical issue, we would encourage the Chairmanship to keep organizing regular informal consultations involving representatives of TNTD and CPC of the OSCE Secretariat and the SMM on seeking ways to increase transparency at the state border between Ukraine and Russia, which would allow the OSCE to duly perform as an impartial actor and ensure effective monitoring, verification and reporting.

Chief Observer,

I would like to assure you, that Ukraine will continue supporting efforts of participating States under the Swedish OSCE Chairmanship aimed at solving critical situation around the term of the Border Observer Mission’s mandate and possible extension of your activities to the whole segment of the border between Russia and Ukraine which is temporarily not under control by the Government of Ukraine. We call on Russia to stick to constructive approach in this regard. Lifting existing restrictions and allowing monitors of the Mission to use observation tools, including binoculars and means of technical surveillance, would be a good start in terms of practical steps in a spirit of real, not pretended «good will».

Thank you, madam Chairperson.