Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba met with OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid on the sidelines of the Warsaw Security Forum. 

Dmytro Kuleba expressed gratitude to Helga Schmid for the OSCE’s efforts to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict and minimize the negative consequences of Russian aggression for the citizens on both sides of the contact line.

He called the decision of the Russian Federation to close the OSCE Observer Mission at the Russian Checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk “a conscious step towards the destruction of the Minsk agreements." 

The Minister recalled that paragraph 4 of the Minsk Protocol of 5 September 2014 provides for the OSCE permanent monitoring and verification of the areas adjacent to the State Border between Ukraine and Russia.

The Minister is convinced that Russia has prevented the presence of OSCE observers at the border in order to supply weapons, ammunition and mercenaries to the temporarily occupied territories in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts with even greater audacity, and to further fuel the armed conflict.

Dmytro Kuleba stressed that Ukraine supports the resumption of monitoring of the uncontrolled part of the Ukrainian-Russian border.

The counterparts discussed the enhancing of the capacity of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine to monitor the uncontrolled segment of the Ukrainian-Russian border and the situation in the temporarily occupied Crimea. 

They also paid attention to the implementation of the goals of the Crimean Platform aimed at the deoccupation of the Crimean peninsula.