Trilateral Contact Group and the situation in Ukraine

The Report by ICPS

Rome [ENA] The Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Ambassador Heidi Grau, made the following statement to the press after the meeting of the TCG ‎and its working groups in Minsk on 29 January 2020: “Today the meetings of the TCG and its Working Groups were focused mainly on the implementation of the conclusions of the Normandy Summit in Paris.

Assessing the general security situation in the conflict zone, I would like to note that the number of ceasefire violations in January remains below last year’s average level. However, according to the data of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, the number of civilian casualties has increased since the end of the last year. Besides shelling, mines remain their main cause. I urge the sides to take all the necessary measures to comply with the ceasefire and scale up their demining activities. I also underline the need for safe and secure access of the OSCE SMM, as required by its mandate. These are key preconditions to prevent civilian casualties and ensure a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Now, in more detail, about the Working Groups meetings. The Security Working Group continued its discussions to identify additional areas for the disengagement of forces and hardware. This topic will again be put on the agenda of the next meeting. Issues of demining activities were addressed as well. The Humanitarian Working Group discussed the topic of missing persons. I want to note that the issue of the full and unconditional access of the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as other international organizations, to all detained persons, as agreed by the Normandy Four leaders, remains open.

In the focus of the Economic Working Group were the issues of water supplies across the contact line in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions (CADR and CALR). Issues related to pension payments and ensuring mobile communications were also addressed. The Political Working Group focused on the issues related to the special status of CADR and CALR as well as the implementation of the ‘Steinmeier formula’ into Ukrainian legislation.”

The sanctioning regime against Russia is in its fifth year. It was introduced as the international community’s response to Russia’s violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, as well as the infringement of human rights in the annexed Crimea and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.European Union and USA have utilized diplomatic measures, individual sanctions, restriction of economic relations with Crimea and Sevastopol, restriction of economic cooperation with Russia. The Russian Federation has mechanisms for compensation of sanction shocks. So, sanctions initially had a significant impact on the Russian economy, but nowadays their consequences are carried by ordinary Russian citizens and end up affecting them more than the authorities.