OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid sent a letter to the participating countries of the organization, in which she drew attention to the growing tension on the Ukrainian border, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has said.

"OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid used the early conflict prevention toolkit. This is only the third time in history that this OSCE toolkit has been used in practice. The previous two dealt with the events in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area in 2012, as well as the illegal detention of Ukrainian sailors by Russia in 2018," Kuleba said at an online briefing on Tuesday.

According to the minister, this means that the OSCE Secretary General has addressed a special letter to all heads of delegations of the participating states, which draws the attention of the OSCE Permanent Council to the growing tension and the risk of an escalation of the situation.

"This is a step to diplomatically prevent further escalation. This is an initiative of the Secretary General, for which we are grateful to her. Helga Schmid pointed out cases of application of section 3 of the Vienna Document as a result of these developments. Without mentioning the countries for which this mechanism is activated, she called for an immediate, as well as the full and effective use of the confidence-building and security-building mechanism to de-escalate the situation, as well as to refrain from actions that could worsen the situation," Kuleba said.