Ukrainian Foreign Ministry demands broader OSCE mission presence on border with Russia
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has asked international organizations to take measures to provide themselves with access to the border with Russia, to Crimea's territory, as well as to Ukrainian citizens currently in Russian detention.
"The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine has officially forwarded a note to the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine about the need to bolster the OSCE SMM's presence along the entire administrative border with the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Ukraine's border with the Russian Federation, including the temporarily uncontrolled sector of the Ukrainian-Russian state border," the ministry said in a report.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry also insists on measures being taken by the mission to gain access to Crimea in order to assess the situation on the Russian-controlled territory of the peninsula.
The ministry said that it had also asked the OSCE SMM, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine to take measures to gain access to Ukrainian citizens detained by the Russian authorities, including Yevhen Panov, who was arrested on suspicion of plotting an act of sabotage in Crimea.
It was reported the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said on August 10 that on August 7 and August 8 it had prevented attempts of Ukrainian sabotage groups to break into Crimea. The FSB also said that it had dismantled the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate's network in Crimea and had detained Ukrainian and Russian citizens, among them resident of the Zaporizhia region's town of Energodar Yevhen Panov, who was referred to as an employee of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate.
Addressing a meeting with the heads of Ukraine's security services and Foreign Ministry on August 11, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko spoke about the need to step up OSCE SMM monitors' presence near the administrative border in Crimea and demanded that Russia provide SMM monitors with access to facilities on the peninsula.
