DONETSK. June 22 (Interfax) - The Donbas conflicting sides have been unwilling to comply with the Minsk Agreements in the fields of arms withdrawal, disengagement of forces and hardware, removal of mines, and free access of the monitors, Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) Alexander Hug said.
Hug said he had seen the same problems, which the OSCE SMM had been reporting for three years, during recent patrolling missions in the southern and northern parts of Donetsk on both sides of the contact line. He mentioned the sides' unwillingness to live by the agreements they reached in Minsk, the presence of heavy weapons in undesignated places, and the extreme proximity of positions to one another, which makes an uncountable number of civilians suffer on both sides of the contact line and destroys the infrastructure and their lives.
Hug also said that farmers on both sides of the contact line told him about the beginning of the harvesting campaign and asked for taking relevant measures.
The monitors spoke with the civilians, who reported a shortage of water in the territory stretching from Donetsk to Mariupol, the damage done to the infrastructure or the risk of its destruction, Hug said. The monitors have seen and recorded the unwillingness of the sides to remove obstacles to the civilian population, including mines and shells huge quantities of which are scattered around the entire area, he said. These mines are a serious impediment to the civilian population and the OSCE SMM monitors operating in those areas, he said.
The monitoring mission has been hindered by both mines and the sides' unwillingness to help its activity, Hug said. For instance, both the Ukrainian army and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) denied access to the monitors on Wednesday, he said.