VIENNA, September 8 (RIA Novosti) – The general ceasefire in eastern Ukraine is holding, despite reports of separate violations, Russia’s envoy to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Andrei Kelin said Monday.
“Yes we did have reports that there were some breaches of ceasefire in different places, many breaches, but I would not exaggerate the significance of it because the conflict was big and certainly of course there will be residual implementation of weapons by some groups of forces, some casualties, and so on. We should look into the general trend. It is already Monday today and we are happy that the ceasefire, general ceasefire, is holding and as far as I understand in the Contact Group they will soon continue to work on the agreements that should be attached to the ceasefire,” Kelin told journalists.
The Russian envoy noted that the number of OSCE observers in Ukraine will mostly likely be increased to 500 and Moscow fully supports the measure.
Representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE agreed to a ceasefire between Kiev and independence supporters during the September 5 meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine in Minsk. The ceasefire started at 15:00 GMT the same day.
The sides also agreed to allow international monitoring of the truce’s implementation.
On Sunday, both the Ukrainian military and the militia accused each other of violating the ceasefire.
