OSCE to monitor truce violation in Kiev

KIEV: The leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany have agreed to send observers to flashpoint sites in eastern Ukraine as sporadic deadly attacks continue to rattle a shaky truce, Kiev said on Tuesday.
Ukraine´s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin described the situation on the ground as “very difficult and tense”, three weeks after a peace roadmap was hammered out in Minsk.
Kiev´s military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said three soldiers had been killed and nine injured in the past 24 hours, but did not say where.
Since the February 12 truce, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have spoken a number of times on shoring up the ceasefire, including implementation of one of the key conditions — the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the frontline.
In a readout of their latest conversation issued by the Ukrainian presidency, the four leaders behind the ceasefire “supported Ukraine´s suggestion to send monitors to all locations of ceasefire violations”.
The intensified monitoring by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe would start with 10 flashpoints, including the Donetsk airport area which fell to the pro-Russian separatists in January after months of deadly combat.
The offices of Hollande, Merkel, and Putin called for greater OSCE involvement and suggested that the monitoring mission publish a daily report on its observations.
Merkel´s spokesman Steffen Seibert said the leaders “agreed that the OSCE should play a more important role in monitoring the ceasefire and the withdrawal of weapons.”
The French presidency noted “progress” in the implementation of the ceasefire but said that the situation in eastern Ukraine — where more than 6,000 people have died since April — needed to be improved.
The Kremlin also backed “rigorous adherence to the ceasefire and a continuation of the pullback of heavy weapons”.