Within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a special “field mission” has been developed that will be able to work in Ukraine without fear of a veto from Russia and Belarus. This was stated in an interview with RTVI by the permanent representative of the United States to the OSCE, Michael Carpenter. He stressed that the mission is not military in nature.
“This is indeed a very important point that people outside the workings of the OSCE are not aware of. Over the past few months, we have established a dedicated OSCE field mission in Ukraine, composed entirely of willing nations and not subject to veto power. Let me explain: Belarus or Russia cannot impose a veto on this mission, since they are not participating in it in any way. And it will be project work to meet the needs of Ukraine during the military conflict,” he said.
As explained by Carpenter, the activities of this mission will aim in particular to provide humanitarian and psychological assistance to the victims, to eliminate and prevent the consequences of hostilities on the environment and to demine the territories.
According to the US Ambassador to the OSCE, in the future there will be more and more such projects to support Ukraine. Thus, Carpenter said that he was personally ready to “support the Prosecutor General of Ukraine” in the investigation of “crimes against humanity”, for example the persecution of people or the abduction of children.
In addition, the OSCE, according to Carpenter, “will try to draw up new charters on the limitation of arms”, but today it is difficult to talk about such measures, given the active conflict and the position of the Russia and Belarus on these issues. . At the same time, the US representative stressed that in this case neither the mission nor the Organization itself “pursued” military objectives, but acted “in an absolutely civilian way”, including economic ones.
“The projects on the ground, we mainly focus on the outcome, which will be tangible for civilians, for people who are facing *** (conflict) against their will,” Carpenter added. According to him, the reconstruction of the country after the end of the conflict “will require a lot of effort”, but within the Organization “there is a backbone of countries which are ready to support Ukraine in the long term”.
The Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine was established in March 2014 in accordance with the consensus decision of the 57 Member States of the Organization. From 2021, the mission was largest in the OSCE and had around 1,300 participants. In March 2022, the mission stopped its work because Russia, after expiry seven-year term denied to extend it. The United States, Ukraine and European countries supported the continuation of the mission’s work. The United States called the decision to end the work of the OSCE mission “irresponsible” and “unacceptable”.
