On Wednesday, all 57 OSCE participating states decided by consensus to extend the mandate of the OSCE observer mission at the Russian checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk for one month until November 23, 2014.

"The mandate of the mission remains unchanged. Operating under the principles of impartiality and transparency, the observers will report on the situation, including movements across the Russian-Ukrainian border at the two Russian checkpoints," the OSCE said in a statement published on its Web site.

The mission was initially launched on July 29, 2014 following a consensus decision of the OSCE Permanent Council on July 24, and was mandated for a period of three months.

The observer mission will continue to consist of 16 civilian observers operating 24/7 in teams, and a small logistic and administrative support team.

"From our standpoint we have been seeing the improvement of the security situation. Before the ceasefire we used to hear a lot of artillery detonations distant from the border," Paul Picard, Acting Chief Observer of the OSCE Observer Mission at the Russian Checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk, said in an interview available on the Web site.

According to him, before the ceasefire "people were crossing from Ukraine to the Russian Federation, and now it is the opposite. People are returning to Ukraine to their homes."