KYIV. March 22 (Interfax) - Donetsk and Luhansk militias have for five years been preventing the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM) from patrolling the area which is supposed to be free from heavy weapons, Yevhen Marchuk, Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) which mediates the conflict in eastern Ukraine, said.
"For the fifth year, not once have OSCE SMM patrols been allowed into this giant territory which must be free from heavy weaponry," Marchuk told Minsk Platform, an informal parliamentary group, in Kyiv on Friday.
Only once did the SMM manage to break through "by about ten kilometers," he said.
The document creating the heavy weapon-free zone "beginning from the Azov sea coast northwards over 100 kilometers" was signed back in 2014, Marchuk said.